MISCELLANIES 

BEING  VOLUME  XI. 

OF 

EMERSON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS 


MISCELLANIES 


BY 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND    COMPANY 
New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 


1884 


Copyright,  1883, 
Br  EDWARD  W.  EMERSON. 


All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


Rf, 

A  i 


NOTE. 


THE  first  five  pieces  in  this  volume,  and  the  Ed 
itorial  Address  from  the  "  Massachusetts  Quarterly 
Review"  were  published  by  Mr.  Emerson,  long- 
ago.  The  speeches  at  the  John  Brown,  the  Walter 
Scott,  and  the  Free  Religious  Association  meetings 
were  published  at  the  time,  no  doubt  with  his  con 
sent,  but  without  any  active  co-operation  on  his 
part.  The  "  Fortune  of  the  Republic  "  appeared 
separately  in  1879 :  the  rest  have  never  been  pub 
lished.  In  none  was  any  change  from  the  original 
form  made  by  me,  except  in  the  "  Fortune  of  the 
Republic,"  which  was  made  up  from  several  lect 
ures  for  the  occasion  upon  which  it  was  read. 

J.  E.  CABOT. 


CONTENTS, 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER 7 

HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE  IN  CONCORD        ....  31 
ADDRESS  AT  THE  DEDICATION  OP  THE  SOLDIERS'  MON 
UMENT  IN  CONCORD          .'''.• 99 

ADDRESS    ON   EMANCIPATION    IN    THE    BRITISH    WEST 

INDIES       .        .      '  .        A  ?'  -M   '4        •        •       "'•'        -  129 

WAR iS;fc;*      ....  177 

THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW      <i«  4        ....  203 

\     THE  ASSAULT  UPON  MR.  SUMNER       ^.^    wi        .        .  231 

;      SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS        j  £  4   ~"  .        .        .  239 
REMARKS   AT  A  MEETING    FOR   THE   RELIEF   OF   JOHN 

BROWN'S  FAMILY      .        .        .        C^N,     |   .        .         .  249 
JOHN  BROWN:  SPEECH  AT  SALEM       ISvQ        .        .  257 
THEODORE  PARKER  :  ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  MEET 
ING  IN  BOSTON                           .        .  i  <*'      ^    .        .        .  265 

''.lid  ^     ',   M.  ;    ''-,'     X 

*-  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION        .        .     Q  •       ]•  '  v  •"*    /;  2/75 
ljJ»THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  .  \  *;{"' '*.  *  ^  .  ^    .  291 
x y ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  .        .        .        .        I  C/^v     .        .  305 
HARVARD  COMMEMORATION  SPEECH         y^v        •        •  317 
EDITORS'  ADDRESS  :    MASSACHUSETTS  QUARTERLY   RE 
VIEW 323 

'  WOMAN 335 

ADDRESS  TO  KOSSUTH                                 .        .                .  357 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

EGBERT  BURNS 363 

WALTER  SCOTT 373 

KEMAKKS  AT  THE  ORGANIZATION  or  THE  FREE  RELIG 
IOUS  ASSOCIATION 379 

SPEECH  AT   THE  ANNUAL   MEETING  OF   THE  FREE  RE 
LIGIOUS  ASSOCIATION 385 

THE  FORTUNE  OP  THE  REPUBLIC  .  393 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER. 

SERMON    DELIVERED    BEFORE  THE    SECOND  CHURCH  IN  BOSTON 
SEPTEMBER  9,  1832. 


THE  LOED'S  SUPPEE. 


The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink  ;  but  righteous 
ness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  —  ROMANS  xiv. 
17. 

IN  the  history  of  the  Church  no  subject  has  been 
more  fruitful  of  controversy  than  the  Lord's  Sup 
per.  There  never  has  been  any  unanimity  in  the 
understanding  of  its  nature,  nor  any  uniformity  in 
the  mode  of  celebrating  it.  Without  considering 
the  frivolous  questions  which  have  been  lately  de 
bated  as  to  the  posture  in  which  men  should  par 
take  of  it ;  whether  mixed  or  unmixed  wine  should 
be  served ;  whether  leavened  or  unleavened  bread 
should  be  broken;  —  the  questions  have  been  settled 
differently  in  every  church,  who  should  be  admitted 
to  the  feast,  and  how  often  it  should  be  prepared. 
In  the  Catholic  Church,  infants  were  at  one  time 
permitted  and  then  forbidden  to  partake ;  and, 
since  the  ninth  century,  the  laity  receive  the  bread 
only,  the  cup  being  reserved  to  the  priesthood.  So, 
as  to  the  time  of  the  solemnity.  In  the  Fourth 


10  SERMON  ON 

Lateran  Council,  it  was  decreed  that  any  believer 
should  communicate  at  least  once  in  a  year,  —  at 
Easter.  Afterwards  it  was  determined  that  this 
Sacrament  should  be  received  three  times  in  the 
year,  —  at  Easter,  Whitsuntide  and  Christmas. 
But  more  important  controversies  have  arisen  re 
specting  its  nature.  The  famous  question  of  the 
Real  Presence  was  the  main  controversy  between 
the  Church  of  England  and  the  Church  of  Rome. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Consubstantiation  taught  by 
Luther  was  denied  by  Calvin.  In  the  Church  of 
England,  Archbishops  Laud  and  Wake  maintained 
that  the  elements  were  an  Eucharist,  or  sacrifice  of 
Thanksgiving  to  God ;  Cudworth  and  Warburton, 
that  this  was  not  a  sacrifice,  but  a  sacrificial  feast ; 
and  Bishop  Hoadley,  that  it  was  neither  a  sacrifice 
nor  a  feast  after  sacrifice,  but  a  simple  commemo 
ration.  And  finally,  it  is  now  near  two  hundred 
years  since  the  Society  of  Quakers  denied  the  au 
thority  of  the  rite  altogether,  and  gave  good  reasons 
for  disusing  it. 

I  allude  to  these  facts  only  to  show  that,  so  far 
from  the  supper  being  a  tradition  in  which  men 
are  fully  agreed,  there  has  always  been  the  widest 
room  for  difference  of  opinion  upon  this  particular. 
Having  recently  given  particidar  attention  to  this 
subject,  I  was  led  to  the  conclusion  that  Jesus  did 
not  intend  to  establish  an  institution  for  perpetual 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  11 

observance  when  he  ate  the  Passover  with  his  dis 
ciples  ;  and,  further,  to  the  opinion,  that  it  is  not 
expedient  to  celebrate  it  as  we  do.  I  shall  now 
endeavor  to  state  distinctly  my  reasons  for  these 
two  opinions. 

I.  The  authority  of  the  rite. 

An  account  of  the  last  supper  of  Christ  with  his 
disciples  is  given  by  the  four  Evangelists,  Mat 
thew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John. 

In  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  (Matt.  xxvi.  26-30) 
are  recorded  the  words  of  Jesus  in  giving  bread  and 
wine  on  that  occasion  to  his  disciples,  but  no  ex 
pression  occurs  intimating  that  this  feast  was  here 
after  to  be  commemorated.  In  St.  Mark  (Mark 
xiv.  22-25)  the  same  words  are  recorded,  and  still 
with  no  intimation  that  the  occasion  was  to  be  re 
membered.  St.  Luke  (Luke  xxii.  19),  after  re 
lating  the  breaking  of  the  bread,  has  these  words : 
"  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me."  In  St.  John, 
although  other  occurrences  of  the  same  evening  are 
related,  this  whole  transaction  is  passed  over  with 
out  notice. 

Now  observe  the  facts.  Two  of  the  Evangelists, 
namely,  Matthew  and  John,  were  of  the  twelve  dis 
ciples,  and  were  present  on  that  occasion.  Neither 
of  them  drops  the  slightest  intimation  of  any  inten 
tion  on  the  part  of  Jesus  to  set  up  anything  perma 
nent.  John  especially,  the  beloved  disciple,  who 


12  SERMON  ON 

has  recorded  with  minuteness  the  conversation  and 
the  transactions  of  that  memorable  evening,  has 
quite  omitted  such  a  notice.  Neither  does  it  ap 
pear  to  have  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Mark,  who, 
though  not  an  eye-witness,  relates  the  other  facts. 
This  material  fact,  that  the  occasion  was  to  be  re 
membered,  is  found  in  Luke  alone,  who  was  not 
present.  There  is  no  reason,  however,  that  we 
know,  for  rejecting  the  account  of  Luke.  I  doubt 
not,  the  expression  was  used  by  Jesus.  I  shall  pres 
ently  consider  its  meaning.  I  have  only  brought 
these  accounts  together,  that  you  may  judge  whether 
it  is  likely  that  a  solemn  institution,  to  be  continued 
to  the  end  of  time  by  all  mankind,  as  they  should 
come,  nation  after  nation,  within  the  influence  of 
the  Christian  religion,  would  have  been  established 
in  this  slight  manner  —  in  a  manner  so  slight,  that 
the  intention  of  commemorating  it  should  not  ap 
pear,  from  their  narrative,  to  have  caught  the  ear 
or  dwelt  in  the  mind  of  the  only  two  among  the 
twelve  who  wrote  down  what  happened. 

Still  we  must  suppose  that  the  expression,  "  This 
do  in  remembrance  of  me,"  had  come  to  the  ear  of 
Luke  from  some  disciple  who  was  present.  What 
did  it  really  signify  ?  It  is  a  prophetic  and  an  af 
fectionate  expression.  Jesus  is  a  Jew,  sitting  with 
his  countrymen,  celebrating  their  national  feast. 
He  thinks  of  his  own  impending  death,  and  wishes 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  13 

the  minds  of  his  disciples  to  be  prepared  for  it. 
"  When  hereafter,"  he  says  to  them,  "  you  shall 
keep  the  Passover,  it  will  have  an  altered  aspect  to 
your  eyes.  It  is  now  a  historical  covenant  of  God 
with  the  Jewish  nation.  Hereafter  it  will  remind 
you  of  a  new  covenant  sealed  with  my  blood.  In 
years  to  come,  as  long  as  your  people  shall  come 
up  to  Jerusalem  to  keep  this  feast,  the  connection 
which  has  subsisted  between  us  will  give  a  new 
meaning  in  your  eyes  to  the  national  festival,  as 
the  anniversary  of  my  death."  I  see  natural  feel 
ing  and  beauty  in  the  use  of  such  language  from 
Jesus,  a  friend  to  his  friends ;  I  can  readily  imagine 
that  he  was  willing  and  desirous,  when  his  disciples 
met,  his  memory  should  hallow  their  intercourse ; 
but  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  believe  that  in  the  use 
of  such  an  expression  he  looked  beyond  the  living 
generation,  beyond  the  abolition  of  the  festival  he 
was  celebrating,  and  the  scattering  of  the  nation, 
and  meant  to  impose  a  memorial  feast  upon  the 
whole  world. 

Without  presuming  to  fix  precisely  the  purpose 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus,  you  will  see  that  many  opin 
ions  may  be  entertained  of  his  intention,  all  con 
sistent  with  the  opinion  that  he  did  not  design  a 
perpetual  ordinance.  He  may  have  foreseen  that 
his  disciples  would  meet  to  remember  him,  and  that 
with  good  effect.  It  may  have  crossed  his  mind 


14  SERMON  ON 

that  this  would  be  easily  continued  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  years,  —  as  men  more  easily  transmit  a 
form  than  a  virtue,  —  and  yet  have  been  altogether 
out  of  his  purpose  to  fasten  it  upon  meir"  in  all  times 
and  all  countries. 

But  though  the  words,  "  Do  this  in  remembrance 
of  me,"  do  not  occur  in  Matthew,  Mark  or  John, 
and  although  it  should  be  granted  us  that,  taken 
alone,  they  do  not  necessarily  import  so  much  as  is 
usually  thought,  yet  many  persons  are  apt  to  imag 
ine  that  the  very  striking  and  personal  manner  in 
which  the  eating  and  drinking  is  described,  indi 
cates  a  striking  and  formal  purpose  to  found  a  fes 
tival.  And  I  admit  that  this  impression  might 
probably  be  left  upon  the  mind  of  one  who  read 
only  the  passages  under  consideration  in  the  New 
Testament.  But  this  impression  is  removed  by 
reading  any  narrative  of  the  mode  in  which  the  an 
cient  or  the  modern  Jews  have  kept  the  Passover. 
It  is  then  perceived  that  the  leading  circumstances 
in  the  Gospels  are  only  a  faithful  account  of  that 
ceremony.  Jesus  did  not  celebrate  the  Passover, 
and  afterwards  the  Supper,  but  the  Supper  was  the 
Passover.  He  did  with  his  disciples  exactly  what 
every  master  of  a  family  in  Jerusalem  was  doing  at 
the  same  hour  with  his  household.  It  appears  that 
the  Jews  ate  the  lamb  and  the  unleavened  bread 
and  drank  wine  after  a  prescribed  manner.  It  was 


.       THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  15 

the  custom  for  the  master  of  the  feast  to  break  the 
bread  and  to  bless  it,  using  this  formula,  which 
the  Talmudists  have  preserved  to  us,  "  Blessed  be 
Thou,  O  Lord,  our  God,  who  givest  us  the  fruit 
of  the  vine," — and  then  to  give  the  cup  to  all. 
Among  the  modern  Jews,  who  in  their  dispersion 
retain  the  Passover,  a  hymn  is  also  sung  after  this 
ceremony,  specifying  the  twelve  great  works  done 
by  God  for  the  deliverance  of  their  fathers  out  of 
Egypt. 

But  still  it  may  be  asked,  Why  did  Jesus  make 
expressions  so  extraordinary  and  emphatic  as  these 
— "  This  is  my  body  which  is  broken  for  you. 
Take  ;  eat.  This  is  my  blood  which  is  shed  for 
you.  Drink  it  "  ?  —  I  reply  they  are  not  extraor 
dinary  expressions  from  him.  They  were  familiar 
in  his  mouth.  He  always  taught  by  parables  and 
symbols.  It  was  the  national  way  of  teaching,  and 
was  largely  used  by  him.  Remember  the  readi 
ness  which  he  always  showed  to  spiritualize  every 
occurrence.  He  stopped  and  wrote  on  the  sand. 
He  admonished  his  disciples  respecting  the  leaven 
of  the  Pharisees.  He  instructed  the  woman  of  Sa 
maria  respecting  living  water.  He  permitted  him 
self  to  be  anointed,  declaring  that  it  was  for  his 
interment.  He  washed  the  feet  of  his  disciples. 
These  are  admitted  to  be  symbolical  actions  and 
expressions.  Here,  in  like  manner,  he  calls  the 


16  SERMON  ON 

bread  his  body,  and  bids  the  disciples  eat.  He 
had  used  the  same  expression  repeatedly  before. 
The  reason  why  St.  John  does  not  repeat  his  words 
on  this  occasion,  seems  to  be  that  he  had  reported 
a  similar  discourse  of  Jesus  to  the  people  of  Caper 
naum  more  at  length  already  (John  vi.  27-GO.) 
He  there  tells  the  Jews,  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh 
of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no 
life  in  you."  And  when  the  Jews  on  that  occasion 
complained  that  they  did  not  comprehend  what  he 
meant,  he  added  for  their  better  understanding-, 
and  as  if  for  our  understanding,  that  we  might  not 
think  his  body  was  to  be  actually  eaten,  that  he 
only  meant  we  should  live  by  his  commandment. 
He  closed  his  discourse  with  these  explanatory  ex 
pressions  :  "  The  flesh  profiteth  nothing ;  the  words 
that  I  speak  to  you,  they  are  spirit  and  they  are 
life." 

Whilst  I  am  upon  this  topic,  I  cannot  help  re 
marking  that  it  is  not  a  little  singular  that  we 
should  have  preserved  this  rite  and  insisted  upon 
perpetuating  one  symbolical  act  of  Christ  whilst  we 
have  totally  neglected  all  others,  —  particularly  one 
other  which  had  at  least  an  equal  claim  to  our  ob 
servance.  Jesus  washed  the  feet  of  his  disciples 
and  told  them  that,  as  he  had  washed  their  feet, 
they  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet ;  for  he  had 
given  them  an  example,  that  they  should  do  as  he 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  17 

had  done  to  them.  I  ask  any  person  who  believes 
the  Supper  to  have  been  designed  by  Jesus  to  be 
commemorated  forever,  to  go  and  read  the  account 
of  it  in  the  other  Gospels,  and  then  compare  with 
it  the  account  of  this  transaction  in  St.  John,  and 
tell  me  if  this  be  not  much  more  explicitly  author 
ized  than  the  Supper.  It  only  differs  in  this,  that 
we  have  found  the  Supper  used  in  New  England 
and  the  washing  of  the  feet  not.  But  if  we  had 
found  it  an  established  rite  in  our  churches,  on 
grounds  of  mere  authority,  it  would  have  been  im 
possible  to  have  argued  against  it.  That  rite  is 
used  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  by  the  Sande- 
manians.  It  has  been  very  properly  dropped  by 
other  Christians.  Why  ?  For  two  reasons  :  (1) 
because  it  was  a  local  custom,  and  unsuitable  in 
western  countries  ;  and  (2)  because  it  was  typical, 
and  all  understood  that  humility  is  the  thing  signi 
fied.  But  the  Passover  was  local  too,  and  does  not 
concern  us,  and  its  bread  and  wine  were  typical, 
and  do  not  help  us  to  understand  the  redemption 
which  they  signified.  These  views  of  the  original 
account  of  the  Lord's  Supper  lead  me  to  esteem  it 
an  occasion  full  of  solemn  and  prophetic  interest, 
but  never  intended  by  Jesus  to  be  the  foundation 
of  a  perpetual  institution. 

It  appears  however  in  Christian  history  that  the 
disciples  had  very  early  taken  advantage  of  these 

VOL.  XI.  2 


18  SERMON  ON 

impressive  words  of  Christ  to  hold  religious  meet 
ings,  where  they  broke  bread  and  drank  wine  as 
symbols.  I  look  upon  this  fact  as  very  natural  in 
the  circumstances  of  the  church.  The  disciples 
lived  together  ;  they  threw  all  their  property  into  a 
common  stock ;  they  were  bound  together  by  the 
memory  of  Christ,  and  nothing  could  be  more  nat 
ural  than  that  this  eventful  evening  should  be  af 
fectionately  remembered  by  them  ;  that  they,  Jews 
like  Jesus,  should  adopt  his  expressions  and  his 
types,  and  furthermore,  that  what  was  done  with 
peculiar  propriety  by  them,  his  personal  friends, 
with  less  propriety  should  come  to  be  extended  to 
their  companions  also.  In  this  way  religious  feasts 
grew  up  among  the  early  Christians.  They  were 
readily  adopted  by  the  Jewish  converts  who  were 
familiar  with  religious  feasts,  and  also  by  the  Pa 
gan  converts  whose  idolatrous  worship  had  been 
made  up  of  sacred  festivals,  and  who  very  readily 
abused  these  to  gross  riot,  as  appears  from  the  cen 
sures  of  St.  Paul.  Many  persons  consider  this 
fact,  the  observance  of  such  a  memorial  feast  by 
the  early  disciples,  decisive  of  the  question  whether 
it  ought  to  be  observed  by  us.  There  was  good 
reason  for  his  personal  friends  to  remember  their 
friend  and  repeat  his  words.  It  was  only  too  prob 
able  that  among  the  half  converted  Pagans  and 
Jews,  any  rite,  any  form,  would  find  favor,  whilst 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  19 

yet  unable  to  comprehend  the  spiritual  character 
of  Christianity. 

The  circumstance,  however,  that  St.  Paul  adopts 
these  views,  has  seemed  to  many  persons  conclusive 
in  favor  of  the  institution.  I  am  of  opinion  that  it 
is  wholly  upon  the  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and 
not  upon  the  Gospels,  that  the  ordinance  stands. 
Upon  this  matter  of  St.  Paul's  view  of  the  Supper, 
a  few  important  considerations  must  be  stated. 

The  end  which  he  has  in  view,  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  the  first  Epistle  is  not  to  enjoin  upon 
his  friends  to  observe  the  Supper,  but  to  censure 
their  abuse  of  it.  We  quote  the  passage  nowadays 
as  if  it  enjoined  attendance  upon  the  Supper ;  but 
he  wrote  it  merely  to  chide  them  for  drunkenness. 
To  make  their  enormity  plainer  he  goes  back  to 
the  origin  of  this  religious  feast  to  show  what  sort 
of  feast  that  was,  out  of  which  this  riot  of  theirs 
came,  and  so  relates  the  transactions  of  the  Last 
Supper.  "  I  have  received  of  the  Lord,"  he  says, 
"  that  which  I  delivered  to  you."  By  this  expres 
sion  it  is  often  thought  that  a  miraculous  communi 
cation  is  implied ;  but  certainly  without  good  rea 
son,  if  it  is  remembered  that  St.  Paul  was  living 
in  the  lifetime  of  all  the  apostles  who  could  give 
him  an  account  of  the  transaction ;  and  it  is  con 
trary  to  all  reason  to  suppose  that  God  should 
work  a  miracle  to  convey  information  that  could 


20  SERMON  ON 

so  easily  be  got  by  natural  means.  So  that  the  im 
port  of  the  expression  is  that  he  had  received  the 
story  of  an  eye-witness  such  as  we  also  possess. 

But  there  is  a  material  circumstance  which  dimin 
ishes  our  confidence  in  the  correctness  of  the  Apos 
tle's  view;  and  that  is,  the  observation  that  his 
mind  had  not  escaped  the  prevalent  error  of  the 
primitive  church,  the  belief,  namely,  that  the 
second  coming  of  Christ  would  shortly  occur,  until 
which  time,  he  tells  them,  this  feast  was  to  be  kept. 
Elsewhere  he  tells  them  that  at  that  time  the  world 
would  be  burnt  up  with  fire,  and  a  new  government 
established,  in  which  the  Saints  would  sit  on 
thrones  ;  so  slow  were  the  disciples  during  the  life 
and  after  the  ascension  of  Christ,  to  receive  the 
idea  which  we  receive,  that  his  second  coming  was 
a  spiritual  kingdom,  the  dominion  of  his  religion  in 
the  hearts  of  men,  to  be  extended  gradually  over 
the  whole  world.  In  this  manner  we  may  see 
clearly  enough  how  this  ancient  ordinance  got  its 
footing  among  the  early  Christians,  and  this  single 
expectation  of  a  speedy  reappearance  of  a  temporal 
Messiah,  which  kept  its  influence  even  over  so  spir 
itual  a  man  as  St.  Paul,  would  naturally  tend  to 
preserve  the  use  of  the  rite  when  once  established. 

We  arrive  then  at  this  conclusion :  first,  that  it 
does  not  appear,  from  a  careful  examination  of  the 
account  of  the  Last  Supper  in  the  Evangelists,  that 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  21 

it  was  designed  by  Jesus  to  be  perpetual ;  secondly, 
that  it  does  not  appear  that  the  opinion  of  St.  Paul, 
all  things  considered,  ought  to  alter  our  opinion 
derived  from  the  Evangelists. 

One  general  remark  before  quitting  this  branch 
of  this  subject.  We  ought  to  be  cautious  in  taking 
even  the  best  ascertained  opinions  and  practices 
of  the  primitive  church,  for  our  own.  If  it  could 
be  satisfactorily  shown  that  they  esteemed  it  au 
thorized  and  to  be  transmitted  forever,  that  does 
not  settle  the  question  for  us.  We  know  how  in- 
veterately  they  were  attached  to  their  Jewish  preju 
dices,  and  how  often  even  the  influence  of  Christ 
failed  to  enlarge  their  views.  On  every  other  sub 
ject  succeeding  times  have  learned  to  form  a  judg 
ment  more  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  Chris 
tianity  than  was  the  practice  of  the  early  ages. 

II.  But  it  is  said  :  "  Admit  that  the  rite  was  not 
designed  to  be  perpetual.  What  harm  doth  it? 
Here  it  stands,  generally  accepted,  under  some 
form,  by  the  Christian  world,  the  undoubted  occa 
sion  of  much  good;  is  it  not  better  it  should  re 
main  ?  This  is  the  question  of  expediency. 

I  proceed  to  state  a  few  objections  that  in  my 
judgment  lie  against  its  use  in  its  present  form. 

1.  If  the  view  which  I  have  taken  of  the  history 
of  the  institution  be  correct,  then  the  claim  of  au 
thority  should  be  dropped  in  administering  it.  You 


22  SERMON  ON 

say,  every  time  you  celebrate  the  rite,  that  Jesus 
enjoined  it ;  and  the  whole  language  you  use  con 
veys  that  impression.  But  if  you  read  the  New 
Testament  as  I  do,  you  do  not  believe  he  did. 

2.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  use  of  this  ordi 
nance  tends  to  produce  confusion  in  our  views  of 
the  relation  of  the  soul  to  God.  It  is  the  old  ob 
jection  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  —  that  the 
true  worship  was  transferred  from  God  to  Christ, 
or  that  such  confusion  was  introduced  into  the  soul 
that  an  undivided  worship  was  given  nowhere.  Is 
not  that  the  effect  of  the  Lord's  Supper  ?  I  appeal 
now  to  the  convictions  of  communicants,  and  ask 
such  persons  whether  they  have  not  been  occasion 
ally  conscious  of  a  painful  confusion  of  thought  be 
tween  the  worship  due  to  God  and  the  commemoration 
due  to  Christ.  For  the  service  does  not  stand  upon 
the  basis  of  a  voluntary  act,  but  is  imposed  by  au 
thority.  It  is  an  expression  of  gratitude  to  Christ, 
enjoined  by  Christ.  There  is  an  endeavor  to  keep 
Jesus  in  mind,  whilst  yet  the  prayers  are  addressed 
to  God.  I  fear  it  is  the  effect  of  this  ordinance  to 
clothe  Jesus  with  an  authority  which  he  never 
claimed  and  which  distracts  the  mind  of  the  wor 
shipper.  I  know  our  opinions  differ  much  respect 
ing  the  nature  and  offices  of  Christ,  and  the  degree 
of  veneration  to  which  he  is  entitled.  I  am  so  much 
a  Unitarian  as  this  :  that  I  believe  the  human  mind 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  23 

cannot  admit  but  one  God,  and  that  every  effort  to 
pay  religious  homage  to  more  than  one  being,  goes 
to  take  away  all  right  ideas.  I  appeal,  brethren,  to 
your  individual  experience.  In  the  moment  when 
you  make  the  least  petition  to  God,  though  it  be 
but  a  silent  wish  that  he  may  approve  you,  or  add 
one  moment  to  your  life,  — do  you  not,  in  the  very 
act,  necessarily  exclude  all  other  beings  from  your 
thought  ?  In  that  act,  the  soul  stands  alone  with 
God,  and  Jesus  is  no  more  present  to  your  mind 
than  your  brother  or  your  child. 

But  is  not  Jesus  called  in  Scripture  the  Media 
tor?  He  is  the  mediator  in  that  only  sense  in 
which  possibly  any  being  can  mediate  between  God 
and  man,  —  that  is,  an  instructor  of  man.  He 
teaches  us  how  to  become  like  God.  And  a  true  dis 
ciple  of  Jesus  will  receive  the  light  he  gives  most 
thankfully  ;  but  the  thanks  he  offers,  and  which  an 
exalted  being  will  accept,  are  not  compliments, 
commemorations,  but  the  use  of  that  instruction. 

3.  Passing  other  objections,  I  come  to  this,  that 
the  use  of  the  elements,  however  suitable  to  the 
people  and  the  modes  of  thought  in  the  East,  where 
it  originated,  is  foreign  and  unsuited  to  affect  us. 
Whatever  long  usage  and  strong  association  may 
have  done  in  some  individuals  to  deaden  this  repul 
sion,  I  apprehend  that  their  use  is  rather  tolerated 
than  loved  by  any  of  us.  We  are  not  accustomed 


24  SERMON  ON 

to  express  our  thoughts  or  emotions  by  symbolical 
actions.  Most  men  find  the  bread  and  wine  no  aid 
to  devotion,  and  to  some  it  is  a  painful  impediment. 
To  eat  bread  is  one  thing ;  to  love  the  precepts 
of  Christ  and  resolve  to  obey  them  is  quite  another. 
The  statement  of  this  objection  leads  me  to  say 
that  I  think  this  difficulty,  wherever  it  is  felt,  to 
be  entitled  to  the  greatest  weight.  It  is  alone  a 
sufficient  objection  to  the  ordinance.  It  is  my  own 
objection.  This  mode  of  commemorating  Christ 
is  not  suitable  to  me.  That  is  reason  enough  why 
I  should  abandon  it.  If  I  believed  it  was  enjoined 
by  Jesus  on  his  disciples,  and  that  he  even  contem 
plated  making  permanent  this  mode  of  commemo 
ration,  every  way  agreeable  to  an  Eastern  mind, 
and  yet  on  trial  it  was  disagreeable  to  my  own 
feelings,  I  should  not  adopt  it.  I  should  choose 
other  ways  which,  as  more  effectual  upon  me,  he 
would  approve  more.  For  I  choose  that  my  re 
membrances  of  him  should  be  pleasing,  affecting, 
religious.  I  will  love  him  as  a  glorified  friend,  af 
ter  the  free  way  of  friendship,  and  not  pay  him  a 
stiff  sign  of  respect,  as  men  do  those  whom  they 
fear.  A  passage  read  from  his  discourses,  a  mov 
ing  provocation  to  works  like  his,  any  act  or  meet 
ing  which  tends  to  awaken  a  pure  thought,  a  flow 
of  love,  an  original  design  of  virtue,  I  call  a  worthy, 
a  true  commemoration. 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  25 

4.  The  importance  ascribed  to  this  particular  or 
dinance  is  not  consistent  with  the  spirit  of  Chris 
tianity.  The  general  object  and  effect'  of  the  or 
dinance  is  unexceptionable.  It  has  been,  and  is, 
I  doubt  not,  the  occasion  of  indefinite  good ;  but 
an  importance  is  given  by  Christians  to  it  which 
never  can  belong  to  any  form.  My  friends,  the 
apostle  well  assures  us  that  "  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness  and  peace 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  I  am  not  so  foolish 
as  to  declaim  against  forms.  Forms  are  as  essen 
tial  as  bodies  ;  but  to  exalt  particular  forms,  to  ad 
here  to  one  form  a  moment  after  it  is  outgrown, 
is  unreasonable,  and  it  is  alien  to  the  spirit  of 
Christ.  If  I  understand  the  distinction  of  Chris 
tianity,  the  reason  why  it  is  to  be  preferred  over 
all  other  systems  and  is  divine  is  this,  that  it  is  a 
moral  system  ;  that  it  presents  men  with  truths 
which  are  their  own  reason,  and  enjoins  practices 
that  are  their  own  justification ;  that  if  miracles 
may  be  said  to  have  been  its  evidence  to  the  first 
Christians,  they  are  not  its  evidence  to  us,  but  the 
doctrines  themselves ;  that  every  practice  is  Chris 
tian  which  praises  itself,  and  every  practice  un 
christian  which  condemns  itself.  I  am  not  engaged 
to  Christianity  by  decent  forms,  or  saving  ordi 
nances  ;  it  is  not  usage,  it  is  not  what  I  do  not  under 
stand,  that  binds  me  to  it,  —  let  these  be  the  sandy 


26  SERMON  ON 

foundations  of  falsehoods.  What  I  revere  and 
obey  in  it  is  its  reality,  its  boundless  charity,  its 
deep  interior  life,  the  rest  it  gives  to  mind,  the  echo 
it  returns  to  my  thoughts,  the  perfect  accord  it 
inakes  with  my  reason  through  all  its  representation 
of  God  and  His  Providence  ;  and  the  persuasion 
and  courage  that  come  out  thence  to  lead  me  up 
ward  and  onward.  Freedom  is  the  essence  of  this 
faith.  It  has  for  its  object  simply  to  make  men 
good  and  wise.  Its  institutions  then  should  be  as 
flexible  as  the  wants  of  men.  That  form  out  of 
which  the  life  and  suitableness  have  departed, 
should  be  as  worthless  in  its  eyes  as  the  dead  leaves 
that  are  falling  around  us. 

And  therefore,  although  for  the  satisfaction  of 
others  I  have  labored  to  show  by  the  history  that 
this  rite  was  not  intended  to  be  perpetual ;  although 
I  have  gone  back  to  weigh  the  expressions  of  Paul, 
I  feel  that  here  is  the  true  point  of  view.  In  the 
midst  of  considerations  as  to  what  Paul  thought, 
and  why  he  so  thought,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that 
it  is  time  misspent  to  argue  to  or  from  his  convic 
tions,  or  those  of  Luke  and  John,  respecting  any 
form.  I  seem  to  lose  the  substance  in  seeking  the 
shadow.  That  for  which  Paul  lived  and  died  so 
gloriously  ;  that  for  which  Jesus  gave  himself  to  be 
crucified ;  the  end  that  animated  the  thousand 
martyrs  and  heroes  who  have  followed  his  steps, 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  27 

was  to  redeem  us  from  a  formal  religion,  and  teach 
us  to  seek  our  well-being  in  the  formation  of  the 
soul.  The  whole  world  was  full  of  idols  and  ordi 
nances.  The  Jewish  was  a  religion  of  forms  ;  it 
was  all  body,  it  had  no  life,  and  the  Almighty  God 
was  pleased  to  qualify  and  send  forth  a  man  to 
teach  men  that  they  must  serve  him  with  the  heart ; 
that  only  that  life  was  religious  which  was  thor 
oughly  good ;  that  sacrifice  was  smoke,  and  forms 
were  shadows.  This  man  lived  and  died  true  to 
this  purpose ;  and  now,  with  his  blessed  word  and 
life  before  us,  Christians  must  contend  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  vital  importance,  —  really  a  duty,  to  com 
memorate  him  by  a  certain  form,  whether  that  form 
be  agreeable  to  their  understandings  or  not.  Is 
not  this  to  make  vain  the  gift  of  God  ?  Is  not  this 
to  turn  back  the  hand  on  the  dial  ?  Is  not  this  to 
make  men, —  to  make  ourselves, —  forget  that  not 
forms,  but  duties;  not  names,  but  righteousness 
and  love  are  enjoined  ;  and  that  in  the  eye  of  God 
there  is  no  other  measure  of  the  value  of  any  one 
form  than  the  measure  of  its  use  ? 

There  remain  some  practical  objections  to  the 
ordinance,  into  which  I  shall  not  now  enter.  There 
is  one  on  which  I  had  intended  to  say  a  few  words ; 
I  mean  the  unfavorable  relation  in  which  it  places 
that  numerous  class  of  persons  who  abstain  from 
it  merely  from  disinclination  to  the  rite. 


28  SERMON  ON 

Influenced  by  these  considerations,  I  have  pro 
posed  to  the  brethren  of  the  Church  to  drop  the 
use  of  the  elements  and  the  claim  of  authority  in 
the  administration  of  this  ordinance,  and  have  sug 
gested  a  mode  in  which  a  meeting  for  the  same 
purpose  might  be  held,  free  of  objection. 

My  brethren  have  considered  my  views  with  pa 
tience  and  candor,  and  have  recommended,  unani 
mously,  an  adherence  to  the  present  form.  I  have 
therefore  been  compelled  to  consider  whether  it  be 
comes  me  to  administer  it.  I  am  clearly  of  opin 
ion  I  ought  not.  This  discourse  has  already  been 
so  far  extended  that  I  can  only  say  that  the  reason 
of  my  determination  is  shortly  this  :  —  It  is  my 
desire,  in  the  office  of  a  Christian  minister,  to  do 
nothing  which  I  cannot  do  with  my  whole  heart. 
Having  said  this,  I  have  said  all.  I  have  no  hos 
tility  to  -this  institution  ;  I  am  only  stating  my 
want  of  sympathy  with  it.  Neither  should  I  ever 
have  obtruded  this  opinion  upon  other  people,  had 
I  not  been  called  by  my  office  to  administer  it. 
That  is  the  end  of  my  opposition,  that  I  am  not  in 
terested  in  it.  I  am  content  that  it  stand  to  the  end 
of  the  world,  if  it  please  men  and  please  Heaven, 
and  I  shall  rejoice  in  all  the  good  it  produces. 

As  it  is  the  prevailing  opinion  and  feeling  in  our 
religious  community,  that  it  is  an  indispensable 
part  of  the  pastoral  office  to  administer  this  ordi- 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER.  29 

nance,  I  am  about  to  resign  into  your  hands  that 
office  which  you  have  confided  to  me.  It  has  many 
duties  for  which  I  am  feebly  qualified.  It  has 
some  which  it  will  always  be  my  delight  to  dis 
charge  according  to  my  ability,  wherever  I  exist. 
And  whilst  the  recollection  of  its  claims  oppresses 
me  with  a  sense  of  my  unworthiness,  I  am  consoled 
by  the  hope  that  no  time  and  no  change  can  de 
prive  me  of  the  satisfaction  of  pursuing  and  exer 
cising  its  highest  functions. 


HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE, 

AT  CONCORD,  ON  THE  SECOND  CENTENNIAL  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE 
INCORPORATION  OF  THE  TOWN,  SEPTEMBER,  12,  1835. 


HISTOEICAL  DISCOUKSE. 


FELLOW  CITIZENS: 

The  town  of  Concord  begins,  this  day,  the  third 
century  of  its  history.  By  a  common  consent,  the 
people  of  New  England,  for  a  few  years  past,  as  the 
second  centennial  anniversary  of  each  of  its  early 
settlements  arrived,  have  seen  fit  to  observe  the  day. 
You  have  thought  it  becoming  to  commemorate  the 
planting  of  the  first  inland  town.  The  sentiment 
is  just,  and  the  practice  is  wise.  Our  ears  shall  not 
be  deaf  to  the  voice  of  time.  We  will  review  the 
deeds  of  our  fathers,  and  pass  that  just  verdict  on 
them  we  expect  from  posterity  on  our  own. 

And  yet,  in  the  eternity  of  nature,  how  recent 
our  antiquities  appear  !  The  imagination  is, impa 
tient  of  a  cycle  so  short.  Who  can  tell  how  many 
thousand  years,  every  day,  the  clouds  have  shaded 
these  fields  with  their  purple  awning  ?  The  river, 
by  whose  banks  most  of  us  were  born,  every  winter, 
for  ages,  has  spread  its  crust  of  ice  over  the  great 
meadows  which,  in  ages,  it  had  formed.  But  the 


34  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

little  society  of  men  who  now,  for  a  few  years,  fish 
in  this  river,  plough  the  fields  it  washes,  mow  the 
grass  and  reap  the  corn,  shortly  shall  hurry  from  its 
banks  as  did  their  forefathers.  "  Man's  life,"  said 
the  Witan  to  the  Saxon  king,  "  is  the  sparrow  that 
enters  at  a  window,  flutters  round  the  house,  and 
flies  out  at  another,  and  none  knoweth  whence 
he  came,  or  whither  he  goes."  The  more  reason 
that  we  should  give  to  our  being  what  permanence 
we  can ;  —  that  we  should  recall  the  Past,  and  ex 
pect  the  Future. 

Yet  the  race  survives  whilst  the  individual  dies. 
In  the  country,  without  any  interference  of  the  law, 
the  agricultural  life  favors  the  permanence  of  fam 
ilies.  Here  are  still  around  me  the  lineal  descend 
ants  of  the  first  settlers  of  this  town.  Here  is  Blood, 
Flint,  Willard,  Meriam,  Wood,  Hosmer,  Barrett, 
Wheeler,  Jones,  Brown,  Buttrick,  Brooks,  Stow, 
Hoar,  Heywood,  Hunt,  Miles,  —  the  names  of  the 
inhabitants  for  the  first  thirty  years ;  and  the  fam 
ily  is  in  many  cases  represented,  when  the  name  is 
not.  If  the  name  of  Bulkeley  is  wanting,  the  honor 
you  have  done  me  this  day,  in  making  me  your 
organ,  testifies  your  persevering  kindness  to  his 
blood. 

I  shall  not  be  expected,  on  this  occasion,  to  re 
peat  the  details  of  that  oppression  which  drove  our 
fathers  out  hither.  Yet  the  town  of  Concord  was 


AT  CONCORD.  35 

settled  by  a  party  of  non-conformists,  immediately 
from  Great  Britain.  The  best  friend  the  Massachu 
setts  colony  had,  though  much  against  his  will,  was 
Archbishop  Laud  in  England.  In  consequence  of 
his  famous  proclamation  setting  up  certain  novelties 
in  the  rites  of  public  worship,  fifty  godly  ministers 
were  suspended  for  contumacy,  in  the  course  of  two 
years  and  a  half.  Hindered  from  speaking,  some 
of  these  dared  to  print  the  reasons  of  their  dissent, 
and  were  punished  with  imprisonment  or  mutila 
tion.1  This  severity  brought  some  of  the  best  men 
in  England  to  overcome  that  natural  repugnance  to 
emigration  which  holds  the  serious  and  moderate  of 
every  nation  to  their  own  soil.  Among  the  silenced 
clergymen  was  a  distinguished  minister  of  Wood- 
hill,  in  Bedfordshire,  Rev.  Peter  Bulkeley,  descend 
ed  from  a  noble  family,  honored  for  his  own  virtues, 
his  learning  and  gifts  as  a  preacher,  and  adding 
to  his  influence  the  weight  of  a  large  estate.2  Per 
secution  readily  knits  friendship  between  its  vic 
tims.  Mr.  Bulkeley  having  turned  his  estate  into 
money  and  set  his  face  towards  New  England,  was 
easily  able  to  persuade  a  good  number  of  planters 
to  join  him.  They  arrived  in  Boston  in  1634.3 
Probably  there  had  been  a  previous  correspondence 

1  Deal's  History  of  New  England,  vol.  i.  p.  132. 

2  Neal's  History  of  New  England,  vol.  i.  p.  321. 
*  Sliattuck's  History  of  Concord,  p.  158. 


36  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

with  Governor  Winthrop,  and  an.  agreement  that 
they  should  settle  at  Musketaquid.  With  them 
joined  Mr.  Simon  Willard,  a  merchant  from  Kent 
in  England.  They  petitioned  the  .General  Court 
for  a  grant  of  a  township,  and  on  the  2d  of  Septem 
ber,  1635,  corresponding  in  New  Style  to  12th  Sep 
tember,  two  hundred  years  ago  this  day,  leave  to 
begin  a  plantation  at  Musketaquid  was  given  to 
Peter  Bulkeley,  Simon  Willard,  and  about  twelve 
families  more.  A  month  later,  Rev.  John  Jones 
and  a  large  number  of  settlers  destined  for  the  new 
town  arrived  in  Boston.1 

The  grant  of  the  General  Court  was  but  a  prelim 
inary  step.  The  green  meadows  of  Musketaquid  or 
Grassy  Brook  were  far  up  in  the  woods,  not  to  be 
reached  without  a  painful  and  dangerous  journey 
through  an  uninterrupted  wilderness.  They  could 
cross  the  Massachusetts  or  Charles  river,  by  the 
ferry  at  Newtown  ;  they  could  go  up  the  river  as  far 
as  Watertown.  But  the  Indian  paths  leading  up 
and  down  the  country  were  a  foot  broad.  They 
must  then  plunge  into  the  thicket,  and  with  their 
axes  cut  a  road  for  their  teams,  with  their  women 
and  children  and  their  household  stuff,  forced  to 
make  long  circuits  too,  to  avoid  hills  and  swamps. 
Edward  Johnson  of  Woburn  has  described  in  an 
affecting  narrative  their  labors  by  the  way.  "  Some- 
1  Shattuck,  p.  5. 


AT  CONCORD.  87 

times  passing  through  thickets  where  their  hands 
are  forced  to  make  way  for  their  bodies'  passage, 
and  their  feet  clambering  over  the  crossed  trees, 
which  when  they  missed,  they  sunk  into  an  uncertain 
bottom  in  water,  and  wade  up  to  their  knees,  tum 
bling  sometimes  higher,  sometimes  lower.  At  the 
end  of  this,  they  meet  a  scorching  plain,  yet  not  so 
plain  but  that  the  ragged  bushes  scratch  their  legs 
foully,  even  to  wearing  their  stockings  to  their  bare 
skin  in  two  or  three  hours.  Some  of  them,  having 
no  leggins,  have  had  the  blood  trickle  down  at  every 
step.  And  in  time  of  summer,  the  sun  casts  such  a 
reflecting  heat  from  the  sweet  fern,  whose  scent  is 
very  strong,  that  some  nearly  fainted."  They  slept 
on  the  rocks,  wherever  the  night  found  them.  Much 
time  was  lost  in  travelling  they  knew  not  whither, 
when  the  sun  was  hidden  by  clouds ;  for  "  their  com 
pass  miscarried  in  crowding  through  the  bushes," 
and  the  Indian  paths,  once  lost,  they  did  not  easily 
find. 

Johnson,  relating  undoubtedly  what  he  had  him 
self  heard  from  the  pilgrims,  intimates  that  they 
consumed  many  days  in  exploring  the  country,  to 
select  the  best  place  for  the  town.  Their  first  tem 
porary  accommodation  was  rude  enough.  "  After 
they  have  found  a  place  of  abode,  they  burrow 
themselves  in  the  earth  for  their  first  shelter,  under  a 
hill-side,  and  casting  the  soil  aloft  upon  timbers,  they 


38  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

make  a  fire  against  the  earth,  at  the  highest  side. 
And  thus  these  poor  servants  of  Christ  provide  shel 
ter  for  themselves,  their  wives  and  little  ones,  keep 
ing  off  the  short  showers  from  their  lodgings,  but 
the  long  rains  penetrate  through,  to  their  great  dis 
turbance  in  the  night  season.  Yet  in  these  poor 
wigwams  they  sing  psalms,  pray  and  praise  their 
God,  till  they  can  provide  them  houses,  which  they 
could  not  ordinarily,  till  the  earth,  by  the  Lord's 
blessing,  brought  forth  bread  to  feed  them.  This 
they  attain  with  sore  travail,  every  one  that  can  lift 
a  hoe  to  strike  into  the  earth,  standing  stoutly  to 
his  labors,  and  tearing  up  the  roots  and  bushes  from 
the  ground,  which,  the  first  year,  yielded  them  a 
lean  crop,  till  the  sod  of  the  earth  was  rotten,  and 
therefore  they  were  forced  to  cut  their  bread  very 
thin  for  a  long  season.  But  the  Lord  is  pleased  to 
provide  for  them  great  store  of  fish  in  the  spring 
time,  and  especially,  alewives,  about  the  bigness  of 
a  herring."  1  These  served  them  also  for  manure. 
For  flesh,  they  looked  not  for  any,  in  those  times, 
unless  they  could  barter  with  the  Indians  for  veni 
son  and  raccoons.  "  Indian  corn,  even  the  coarsest, 
made  as  pleasant  meal  as  rice."  2  All  kinds  of  gar 
den  fruits  grew  well,  "  and  let  no  man,"  writes  our 

1  Johnson's  Wonder  -  Working  Providence,   chap.  xxxv.     I 
have  abridged  and  slightly  altered  some  sentences. 

2  Mourt,  Beginning  of  Plymouth,  1621,  p.  60. 


AT  CONCORD.  39 

pious  chronicler,  in  another  place,  "  make  a  jest  of 
pumpkins,  for  with  this  fruit  the  Lord  was  pleased 
to  feed  his  people  until  their  corn  and  cattle  were 
increased."  1 

The  great  cost  of  cattle,  and  the  sickening  of 
their  cattle  upon  such  wild  fodder  as  was  never  cut 
before ;  the  loss  of  their  sheep  and  swine  by  wolves  ; 
the  sufferings  of  the  people  in  the  great  snows  and 
cold  soon  following ;  and  the  fear  of  the  Pequots ; 
are  the  other  disasters  enumerated  by  the  historian. 

The  hardships  of  the  journey  and  of  the  first  en 
campment,  are  certainly  related  by  their  contempo 
rary  with  some  air  of  romance,  yet  they  can  scarcely 
be  exaggerated.  A  march  of  a  number  of  families 
with  their  stuff,  through  twenty  miles  of  unknown 
forest,  from  a  little  rising  town  that  had  not  much 
to  spare,  to  an  Indian  town  in  the  wilderness  that 
had  nothing,  must  be  laborious  to  all,  and  for  those 
who  were  new  to  the  country  and  bred  in  softness, 
a  formidable  adventure.  But  the  pilgrims  had  the 
preparation  of  an  armed  mind,  better  than  any  hard 
ihood  of  body.  And  the  rough  welcome  which  the 
new  land  gave  them  was  a  fit  introduction  to  the 
life  they  must  lead  in  it. 

But  what  was  their  reception  at  Musketaquid  ? 
This  was  an  old  village  of  the  Massachusetts  In 
dians.  Tahattawan,  the  Sachem,  with  Waban  his 
1  Johnson,  p.  56. 


40  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

son-in-law,  lived  near  Nashawtuck,  now  Lee's  Hill.1 
Their  tribe,  once  numerous,  the  epidemic  had  re 
duced.  Here  they  planted,  hunted  and  fished. 
The  moose  was  still  trotting  in  the  country,  and  of 
his  sinews  they  made  their  bowstring.  Of  the  pith 
elder,  that  still  grows  beside  our  brooks,  they  made 
their  arrow.  Of  the  Indian  Hemp  they  spun  their 
nets  and  lines  for  summer  angling,  and,  in  winter, 
they  sat  around  holes  in  the  ice,  catching  salmon, 
pickerel,  breams  and  perch,  with  which  our  river 
abounded.2  Their  physical  powers,  as  our  fathers 
found  them,  and  before  yet  the  English  alcohol  had 
proved  more  fatal  to  them  than  the  English  sword, 
astonished  the  white  men.3  Their  sight  was  so  ex 
cellent,  that,  standing  on  the  sea  shore,  they  often 
told  of  the  coming  of  a  ship  at  sea,  sooner  by  one 
hour,  yea  two  hours  sail,  than  any  Englishman  that 
stood  by,  on  purpose  to  look  out.4  Roger  Williams 
affirms  that  he  has  known  them  run  between  eighty 
and  a  hundred  miles  in  a  summer's  day,  and  back 
again  within  two  days.  A  little  pounded  parched 
corn  or  no- cake  sufficed  them  on  the  march.  To 
his  bodily  perfection,  the  wild  man  added  some 
noble  traits  of  character.  He  was  open  as  a  child 

1  Shattuck,  p.  3. 

2  Josselyn's  Voyages  to  New  England,  1638. 

8  Hutch insoii's  History  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  i.  chap.  6. 
4  Thomas  Morton ;  New  England  Canaan,  p.  47. 


AT  CONCORD.  41 

to  kindness  and  justice.  Many  instances  of  his  hu 
manity  were  known  to  the  Englishmen  who  suffered 
in  the  woods  from  sickness  or  cold.  "  When  you 
came  over  the  morning  waters,"  said  one  of  the 
Sachems,  "  we  took  you  into  our  arms.  We  fed 
you  with  our  best  meat.  Never  went  white  man 
cold  and  hungry  from  Indian  wigwam." 

The  faithful  dealing  and  brave  good-will,  which, 
dui'ing  the  life  of  the  friendly  Massasoit,  they  uni 
formly  experienced  at  Plymouth  and  at  Boston, 
went  to  their  hearts.  So  that  the  peace  was  made, 
and  the  ear  of  the  savage  already  secured,  before 
the  pilgrims  arrived  at  his  seat  of  Musketaquid,  to 
treat  with  him  for  his  lands. 

It  is  said  that  the  covenant  made  with  the  In 
dians  by  Mr.  Bulkeley  and  Major  Willard,  was 
made  under  a  great  oak,  formerly  standing  near 
the  site  of  the  Middlesex  Hotel.1  Our  Records  af 
firm  that  Squaw  Sachem,  Tahattawan,  and  Nimrod 
did  sell  a  tract  of  six  miles  square  to  the  English, 
receiving  for  the  same,  some  fathoms  of  Wampum- 
peag,  hatchets,  hoes,  knives,  cotton  cloth  and  shirts. 
Wibbacowet,  the  husband  of  Squaw  Sachem,  re 
ceived  a  suit  of  cloth,  a  hat,  a  white  linen  band, 
shoes,  stockings  and  a  great  coat ;  and,  in  conclusion, 
the  said  Indians  declared  themselves  satisfied,  and 
told  the  Englishmen  they  were  welcome.  And 
1  Shattuck,  p.  6. 


42  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

after  the  bargain  was  concluded,  Mr.  Simon  Wil- 
lard,  pointing  to  the  four  corners  of  the  world,  de 
clared  that  they  had  bought  three  miles  from  that 
place,  east,  west,  north  and  south.1 

The  Puritans,  to  keep  the  remembrance  of  their 
unity  one  with  another,  and  of  their  peaceful  com 
pact  with  the  Indians,  named  their  forest  settlement 
CONCORD.  They  proceeded  to  build,  under  the 
shelter  of  the  hill  that  extends  for  a  mile  along  the 
north  side  of  the  Boston  road,  their  first  dwellings. 
The  labors  of  a  new  plantation  were  paid  by  its  ex 
citements.  I  seem  to  see  them,  with  their  pious 
pastor,  addressing  themselves  to  the  work  of  clear 
ing  the  land.  Natives  of  another  hemisphere,  they 
beheld,  with  curiosity,  all  the  pleasing  features  of 
the  American  forest.  The  landscape  before  them 
was  fair,  if  it  was  strange  and  rude.  The  little 
flower  which  at  this  season  stars  our  woods  and 
roadsides  with  its  profuse  blooms,  might  attract 
even  eyes  as  stern  as  theirs  with  its  humble  beauty. 
The  useful  pine  lifted  its  cones  into  the  frosty  air. 
The  maple  which  is  already  making  the  forest  gay 
with  its  orange  hues,  reddened  over  those  houseless 
men.  The  majestic  summits  of  Wachusett  and 
Monadnoc  towering  in  the  horizon,  invited  the  steps 
of  adventure  westward. 

1  Depositions  taken  in  1684,  and  copied  in  the  first  volume 
of  the  Town  Records. 


AT  CONCORD.  43 

As  the  season  grew  later,  they  felt  its  inconven 
iences.  "  Many  were  forced  to  go  barefoot  and 
bareleg,  and  some  in  time  of  frost  and  snow,  yet 
were  they  more  healthy  than  now  they  are." l  The 
land  was  low  but  healthy ;  and  if,  in  common  with 
all  the  settlements,  they  found  the  air  of  America 
very  cold,  they  might  say  with  Higginson,  after  his 
description  of  the  other  elements,  that  "  New  Eng 
land  may  boast  of  the  element  of  fire,  more  than  all 
the  rest ;  for  all  Europe  is  not  able  to  afford  to  make 
so  great  fires  as  New  England.  A  poor  servant, 
that  is  to  possess  but  fifty  acres,  may  afford  to  give 
more  wood  for  fire  as  good  as  the  world  yields,  than 
many  noblemen  in  England."  2  Many  were  their 
wants,  but  more  their  privileges.  The  light  strug 
gled  in  through  windows  of  oiled  paper,3  but  they 
read  the  word  of  God  by  it.  They  were  fain  to 
make  use  of  their  knees  for  a  table,  but  their  limbs 
were  their  own.  Hard  labor  and  spare  diet  they 
had,  and  off  wooden  trenchers,  but  they  had  peace 
and  freedom,  and  the  wailing  of  the  tempest  in  the 
woods  sounded  kindlier  in  their  ear  than  the  smooth 
voice  of  the  prelates,  at  home,  in  England.  "  There 
is  no  people,"  said  their  pastor  to  his  little  flock  of 
exiles,  "but  will  strive  to  excel  in  something. 

1  Johnson. 

2  New  England's  Plantation. 

8  E.  W.'s  Letter  in  Mourt,  1621. 


44  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

What  can  we  excel  in,  if  not  in  holiness  ?  If  we 
look  to  number,  we  are  the  fewest ;  if  to  strength, 
we  are  the  weakest ;  if  to  wealth  and  riches,  we  are 
the  poorest  of  all  the  people  of  Gocl  through  the 
whole  world.  We  cannot  excel  nor  so  much  as 
equal  other  people  in  these  things ;  and  if  we  come 
short  in  grace  and  holiness  too,  we  are  the  most  des 
picable  people  under  heaven.  Strive  we,  there 
fore,  herein  to  excel,  and  suffer  not  this  crown  to  be 
taken  away  from  us."  1  The  sermon  fell  into  good 
and  tender  hearts ;  the  people  conspired  with  their 
teacher.  Their  religion  was  sweetness  and  peace 
amidst  toil  and  tears.  And,  as  we  are  informed, 
"  the  edge  of  their  appetite  was  greater  to  spiritual 
duties  at  their  first  coining,  in  time  of  wants,  than 
afterwards." 

The  original  Town  Records,  for  the  first  thirty 
years,  are  lost.  We  have  records  of  marriages 
and  deaths,  beginning  nineteen  years  after  the  set 
tlement  ;  and  copies  of  some  of  the  doings  of  the 
town  in  regard  to  territory,  of  the  same  date.  But 
the  original  distribution  of  the  land,  or  an  account 
of  the  principles  on  which  it  was  divided,  are  not 
preserved.  Agreeably  to  the  custom  of  the  times, 
a  large  portion  was  reserved  to  the  public,  and  it 
appears  from  a  petition  of  some  new  comers,  in 

1  Peter  Bulkeley's  Gospel  Covenant  •  Preached  at  Concord 
in  N.  E.  2d  Edition  ;  London,  1651,  p.  432. 


AT  CONCORD.  45 

1643,  that  a  part  had  been  divided  among  the  first 
settlers  without  price,  on  the  single  condition  of 
improving  it.1  Other  portions  seem  to  have  been 
successively  divided  off  and  granted  to  individuals, 
at  the  rate  of  sixpence  or  a  shilling  an  acre.  But, 
in  the  first  years,  the  land  would  not  pay  the  neces 
sary  public  charges,  and  they  seem  to  have  fallen 
heavily  on  the  few  wealthy  planters.  Mr.  Bulkeley, 
by  his  generosity,  spent  his  estate,  and,  doubtless  in 
consideration  of  his  charges,  the  General  Court,  in 
1639,  granted  him  300  acres  towards  Cambridge  ; 
and  to  Mr.  Spencer,  probably  for  the  like  reason, 
300  acres  by  the  Alewife  River.  In  1638,  1200 
acres  were  granted  to  Governor  Winthrop,  and  1000 
to  Thomas  Dudley  of  the  lands  adjacent  to  the  town, 
and  Governor  Winthrop  selected  as  a  building  spot 
the  land  near  the  house  of  Capt.  Humphrey  Hunt.2 
The  first  record  now  remaining  is  that  of  a  reserva 
tion  of  land  for  the  minister,  and  the  appropriation 
of  new  lands  as  commons  or  pastures  to  some  poor 
men.  At  the  same  date,  in  1654,  the  town  having 
divided  itself  into  three  districts,  called  the  North, 
South  and  East  quarters,  Ordered,  "  that  the  North 
quarter  are  to  keep  and  maintain  all  their  highways 
and  bridges  over  the  great  river,  in  their  quarter, 
and,  in  respect  of  the  greatness  of  their  charge  there- 

1  See  the  Petition  in  Shattuck,  p.  14. 

2  Shattuck,  p.  14. 


46  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

about,  and  in  regard  of  the  ease  of  the  East  quarter 
above  the  rest,  in  their  highways,  they  are  to  allow 
the  North  quarter  <£3."  l 

Fellow  Citizens,  this  first  recorded  political  act 
of  our  fathers,  this  tax  assessed  on  its  inhabitants 
by  a  town,  is  the  most  important  event  in  their 
civil  history,  implying,  as  it  does,  the  exercise  of  a 
sovereign  power,  and  connected  with  all  the  immu 
nities  and  powers  of  a  corporate  town  in  Massachu 
setts.  The  greater  speed  and  success  that  distin 
guish  the  planting  of  the  human  race  in  this  country, 
over  all  other  plantations  in  history,  owe  them 
selves  mainly  to  the  new  subdivisions  of  the  State 
into  small  corporations  of  land  and  power.  It  is 
vain  to  look  for  the  inventor.  No  man  made  them. 
Each  of  the  parts  of  that  perfect  structure  grew 
out  of  the  necessities  of  an  instant  occasion.  The 
germ  was  formed  in  England.  The  charter  gave 
to  the  freemen  of  the  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  the  election  of  the  Governor  and  Council  of 
Assistants.  It  moreover  gave  them  the  power  of 
prescribing  the  manner  in  which  freemen  should 
be  elected ;  and  ordered  that  all  fundamental  laws 
should  be  enacted  by  the  freemen  of  the  colony. 
But  the  Company  removed  to  New  England  ;  more 
than  one  hundred  freemen  were  admitted  the  first 
year,  and  it  was  found  inconvenient  to  assemble 
1  Town  Records  ;  Shattuck,  p.  34. 


AT  CONCORD.  47 

them  all.1  And  when,  presently,  the  design  of  the 
colony  began  to  fulfill  itself,  by  the  settlement  of 
new  plantations  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston,  and  par 
ties,  with  grants  of  land,  straggled  into  the  country 
to  truck  with  the  Indians  and  to  clear  tho  land  for 
their  own  benefit,  the  Governor  and  freemen  in 
Boston  found  it  neither  desirable  nor  possible  to 
control  the  trade  and  practices  of  these  farmers. 
What  could  the  body  of  freemen,  meeting  four 
times  a  year,  at  Boston,  do  for  the  daily  wants  of 
the  planters  at  Musketaquid  ?  The  wolf  was  to  be 
killed ;  the  Indian  to  be  watched  and  resisted ; 
wells  to  be  dug  ;  the  forest  to  be  felled ;  pastures  to 
be  cleared  ;  corn  to  be  raised ;  roads  to  be  cut ; 
town  and  farm  lines  to  be  run.  These  things  must 
be  done,  govern  who  might.  The  nature  of  man 
and  his  condition  in  the  world,  for  the  first  time 
within  the  period  of  certain  history,  controlled  the 
formation  of  the  State.  The  necessity  of  the  colo 
nists  wrote  the  law.  Their  wants,  their  poverty, 
their  manifest  convenience  made  them  bold  to  ask 
of  the  Governor  and  of  the  General  Court,  immu 
nities,  and,  to  certain  purposes,  sovereign  powers. 
The  townsmen's  words  were  heard  and  weighed,  for 
all  knew  that  it  was  a  petitioner  that  could  not  be 
slighted ;  it  was  the  river,  or  the  winter,  or  famine, 
or  the  Pequots,  that  spoke  through  them  to  the  Gov- 
1  Bancroft ;  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i.  p.  389. 


48  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

ernor  and  Council  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  In 
structed  by  necessity,  each  little  company  organized 
itself  after  the  pattern  of  the  larger  town,  by  ap 
pointing  its  constable,  and  other  petty  half-military 
officers.  As  early  as  16 33,1  the  office  of  towns 
man  or  selectman  appears,  who  seems  first  to  have 
been  appointed  by  the  General  Court,  as  here,  at 
Concord,  in  1639.  In  1635,  the  Court  say, "  whereas 
particular  towns  have  many  things  which  concern 
only  themselves,  it  is  Ordered,  that  the  freemen  of 
every  town  shall  have  power  to  dispose  of  their  own 
lands,  and  woods,  and  choose  their  own  particular 
officers."  2  This  pointed  chiefly  at  the  office  of  con 
stable,  but  they  soon  chose  their  own  selectmen, 
and  very  early  assessed  taxes  ;  a  power  at  first  re 
sisted,3  but  speedily  confirmed  to  them. 

Meantime,  to  this  paramount  necessity,  a  milder 
and  more  pleasing  influence  was  joined.  I  esteem 
it  the  happiness  of  this  country,  that  its  settlers, 
whilst  they  were  exploring  their  granted  and  natural 
rights  and  determining  the  power  of  the  magistrate, 
were  united  by  personal  affection.  Members  of  a 
church  before  whose  searching  covenant  all  rank 
was  abolished,  they  stood  in  awe  of  each  other,  as 
religious  men.  They  bore  to  John  Winthrop,  the 

1  Savage's  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  114. 

2  Colony  Records,  vol.  i. 

8  See  Hutcliinson's  Collection,  p.  287. 


^ 

AT  CONCORD. 

Governor,  a  grave  but  hearty  kindness.  Fol 
first  time,  men  examined  the  powers  of  the  chief 
whom  they  loved  and  revered.  For  the  first  time, 
the  ideal  social  compact  was  real.  The  bands  of 
love  and  reverence  held  fast  the  little  state,  whilst 
they  untied  the  great  cords  of  authority  to  examine 
their  soundness  and  learn  on  what  wheels  they  ran. 
They  were  to  settle  the  internal  constitution  of  the 
towns,  and,  at  the  same  time,  their  power  in  the 
commonwealth.  The  Governor  conspires  with  them 
in  limiting  his  claims  to  their  obedience,  and  values 
much  more  their  love  than  his  chartered  authority. 
The  disputes  between  that  forbearing  man  and  the 
deputies  are  like  the  quarrels  of  girls,  so  much  do 
they  turn  upon  complaints  of  unkindness,  and  end 
in  such  loving  reconciliations.  It  was  on  doubts 
concerning  their  own  power,  that,  in  1634,  a  com 
mittee  repaired  to  him  for  counsel,  and  he  advised, 
seeing  the  freemen  were  grown  so  numerous,  to  send 
deputies  from  every  towTi  once  in  a  year  to  revise 
the  laws  and  to  assess  all  monies.1  And  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  thus  constituted,  only  needed  to  go  into 
separate  session  from  the  council,  as  they  did  in 
1644,2  to  become  essentially  the  same  assembly  they 
are  this  day. 

1  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  i.  pp.  128,  129,  and  the  Editor's 
Note. 

2  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  ii.  p.  160. 
VOL.  xi.  4 


50  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

By  this  course  of  events,  Concord  and  the  other 
plantations  found  themselves  separate  and  inde 
pendent  of  Boston,  with  certain  rights  of  their  own, 
which,  what  they  were,  time  alone  could  fully  de 
termine  ;  enjoying,  at  the  same  time,  a  strict  and 
loving  fellowship  with  Boston,  and  sure  of  advice 
and  aid,  on  every  emergency.  Their  powers  were 
speedily  settled  by  obvious  convenience,  and  the 
towns  learned  to  exercise  a  sovereignty  in  the  lay 
ing  of  taxes ;  in  the  choice  of  their  deputy  to  the 
house  of  representatives ;  in  the  disposal  of  the 
town  lands ;  in  the  care  of  public  worship,  the 
school  and  the  poor ;  and,  what  seemed  of  at  least 
equal  importance,  to  exercise  the  right  of  express 
ing  an  opinion  on  every  question  before  the  coun 
try.  In  a  town-meeting,  the  great  secret  of  politi 
cal  science  was  uncovered,  and  the  problem  solved, 
how  to  give  every  individual  his  fair  weight  in  the 
government,  without  any  disorder  from  numbers. 
In  a  town-meeting,  the  roots  of  society  were  reached. 
Here  the  rich  gave  counsel,  but  the  poor  also  ;  and 
moreover,  the  just  and  the  unjust.  He  is  ill-in 
formed  who  expects,  on  running  down  the  town 
records  for  two  hundred  years,  to  find  a  church  of 
saints,  a  metropolis  of  patriots,  enacting  wholesome 
and  creditable  laws.  The  constitution  of  the  towns 
forbid  it.  In  this  open  democracy,  every  opinion 
had  utterance ;  every  objection,  every  fact,  every 


AT  CONCORD.  51 

acre  of  land,  every  bushel  of  rye,  its  entire  weight. 
The  moderator  was  the  passive  mouth-piece,  and 
the  vote  of  the  town,  like  the  vane  on  the  turret 
overhead,  free  for  every  wind  to  turn,  and  always 
turned  by  the  last  and  strongest  breath.  In  these 
assemblies,  the  public  weal,  the  call  of  interest, 
duty,  religion,  were  heard  ;  and  every  local  feeling, 
every  private  grudge,  every  suggestion  of  petulance 
and  ignorance,  were  not  less  faithfully  produced. 
Wrath  and  love  came  up  to  town-meeting  in  com 
pany.  By  the  law  of  1641,  every  man,  —  freeman 
or  not,  —  inhabitant  or  not,  —  might  introduce  any 
business  into  a  public  meeting.  Not  a  complaint 
occurs  in  all  the  volumes  of  our  Records,  of  any  in 
habitant  being  hindered  from  speaking,  or  suffer 
ing  from  any  violence  or  usurpation  of  any  class. 
The  negative  ballot  of  a  ten  shilling  freeholder  was 
as  fatal  as  that  of  the  honored  owner  of  Blood's 
Farms  or  Willard's  Purchase.  A  man  felt  him 
self  at  liberty  to  exhibit,  at  town-meeting,  feelings 
and  actions  that  he  would  have  been  ashamed  of 
anywhere  but  amongst  his  neighbors.  Individual 
protests  are  frequent.  Peter  Wright  [1705]  de 
sired  his  dissent  might  be  recorded  from  the  town's 
grant  to  John  Shepard.1  In  1795,  several  town- 
meetings  are  called,  upon  the  compensation  to  be 
made  to  a  few  proprietors  for  land  taken  in  mak- 
1  Concord  Town  Records. 


52  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

ing  a  bridle  road ;  and  one  of  them  demanding 
large  damages,  many  offers  were  made  him  in  town- 
meeting,  and  refused  ;  "  which  the  town  thought 
very  unreasonable."  The  matters  there  debated 
are  such  as  to  invite  very  small  considerations. 
The  ill-spelled  pages  of  the  town  records  contain 
the  result.  I  shall  be  excused  for  confessing  that 
I  have  set  a  value  upon  any  symptom  of  meanness 
and  private  pique  which  I  have  met  with  in  these 
antique  books,  as  proof  that  justice  was  done  ;  that 
if  the  results  of  our  history  are  approved  as  wise 
and  good,  it  was  yet  a  free  strife ;  if  the  good  coun 
sel  prevailed,  the  sneaking  counsel  did  not  fail  to  be 
suggested  ;  freedom  and  virtue,  if  they  triumphed, 
triumphed  in  a  fair  field.  And  so  be  it  an  everlast 
ing  testimony  for  them,  and  so  much  ground  of  as 
surance  of  man's  capacity  for  self-government. 

It  is  the  consequence  of  this  institution  that  not 
a  school-house,  a  public  pew,  a  bridge,  a  pound,  a 
mill-dam,  hath  been  set  up,  or  pulled  down,  or  al 
tered,  or  bought,  or  sold,  without  the  whole  popula 
tion  of  this  town  having  a  voice  in  the  affair.  A 
general  contentment  is  the  result.  And  the  peo 
ple  truly  feel  that  they  are  lords  of  the  soil.  In 
every  winding  road,  in  every  stone  fence,  in  the 
smokes  of  the  poor-house  chimney,  in  the  clock  on 
the  church,  they  read  their  own  power,  and  con 
sider,  at  leisure,  the  wisdom  and  error  of  their 
judgments. 


AT  CONCORD.  53 

The  British  government  has  recently  presented 
to  the  several  public  libraries  of  this  country,  cop 
ies  of  the  splendid  edition  of  the  Domesday  Book, 
and  other  ancient  public  Kecords  of  England.  I 
cannot  but  think  that  it  would  be  a  suitable  ac 
knowledgment  of  this  national  munificence,  if  the 
records  of  one  of  our  towns,  —  of  this  town,  for 
example,  —  should  be  printed,  and  presented  to  the 
governments  of  Europe  ;  to  the  English  nation,  as 
a  thank-offering,  and  as  a  certificate  of  the  prog 
ress  of  the  Saxon  race  ;  to  the  continental  nations 
as  a  lesson  of  humanity  and  love.  Tell  them,  the 
Union  has  twenty-four  States,  and  Massachusetts 
is  one.  Tell  them,  Massachusetts  has  three  hun 
dred  towns,  and  Concord  is  one  ;  that  in  Concord 
are  five  hundred  rateable  polls,  and  every  one  has 
an  equal  vote. 

About  ten  years  after  the  planting  of  Concord, 
efforts  began  to  be  made  to  civilize  the  Indians, 
and  "  to  win  them  to  the  knowledge  of  the  true 
God."  This  indeed,  in  so  many  words,  is  expressed 
in  the  charter  of  the  Colony  as  one  of  its  ends; 
and  this  design  is  named  first  in  the  printed  "  Con 
siderations,"  l  that  inclined  Hampden,  and  deter 
mined  Winthrop  and  his  friends,  to  come  hither. 
The  interest  of  the  Puritans  in  the  natives  was 
heightened  by  a  suspicion  at  that  time  prevailing. 
1  Hutchinson's  Collection,  p.  27. 


54  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

that  these  were  the  lost  ten  tribes  of  Israel.  The 
man  of  the  woods  might  well  draw  on  himself  the 
compassion  of  the  planters.  His  erect  and  perfect 
form,  though  disclosing  some  irregular  virtues,  was 
found  joined  to  a  dwindled  soul.  Master  of  all 
sorts  of  wood-craft,  he  seemed  a  part  of  the  forest 
and  the  lake,  and  the  secret  of  his  amazing  skill 
seemed  to  be  that  he  partook  of  the  nature  and 
fierce  instincts  of  the  beasts  he  slew.  Those  who 
dwelled  by  ponds  and  rivers  had  some  tincture  of 
civility,  but  the  hunters  of  the  tribe  were  found  in 
tractable  at  catechism.  Thomas  Hooker  antici 
pated  the  opinion  of  Humboklt,  and  called  them 
"the  ruins  of  mankind." 

Early  efforts  were  made  to  instruct  them,  in 
which  Mr.  Bulkeley,  Mr.  Flint,  and  Capt.  Willard, 
took  an  active  part.  In  1644,  Squaw  Sachem,  the 
widow  of  Nanepashemet,  the  great  Sachem  of  Con 
cord  and  Mistic,  with  two  sachems  of  Wachusett, 
made  a  formal  submission  to  the  English  govern 
ment,  and  intimated  their  desire,  "  as  opportunity 
served,  and  the  English  lived  among  them,  to  learn 
to  read  God's  word,  and  know  God  aright;  "  and  the 
General  Court  acted  on  their  request.1  John  Eliot, 
in  October,  1646,  preached  his  first  sermon  in  the 
Indian  language  at  Noonantutn ;  Wabau,  Tahatta- 
wau,  and  their  sannaps,  going  thither  from  Con- 
1  Shattuck,  p.  20. 


AT  CONCORD.  55 

cord  to  hear  him.  There  under  the  rubbish  and 
ruins  of  barbarous  life,  the  human  heart  heard  the 
voice  of  love,  and  awoke  as  from  a  sleep.  The 
questions  which  the  Indians  put  betray  their  rea 
son  and  their  ignorance.  "  Can  Jesus  Christ  un 
derstand  prayers  in  the  Indian  language  ?  "  "If 
a  man  be  wise,  and  his  sachem  weak,  must  he  obey 
him  ?  "  At  a  meeting  which  Eliot  gave  to  the 
squaws  apart,  the  wife  of  Wampooas  propounded 
the  question,  "  Whether  do  I  pray  when  my  hus 
band  prays,  if  I  speak  nothing  as  he  doth,  yet  if 
I  like  what  he  saith  ?  "  —  "  which  questions  were 
accounted  of  by  some,  as  part  of  the  whitenings  of 
the  harvest  toward."  l  Tahattawan,  our  Concord 
sachem,  called  his  Indians  together,  and  bid  them 
not  oppose  the  courses  which  the  English  were  tak 
ing  for  their  good ;  for,  said  he,  all  the  time  you 
have  lived  after  the  Indian  fashion,  under  the  power 
of  the  higher  sachems,  what  did  they  care  for  you  ? 
They  took  away  your  skins,  your  kettles  and  your 
wampum,  at  their  own  pleasure,  and  this  was  all 
they  regarded.  But  you  may  see  the  English  mind 
no  such  things,  but  only  seek  your  welfare,  and 
instead  of  taking  away,  are  ready  to  give  to  you. 
Tahattawan  and  his  son-in-law  Waban,  besought 
Eliot  to  come  and  preach  to  them  at  Concord,  and 
here  they  entered,  by  his  assistance,  into  an  agree- 
1  Shepard's  Clear  Sunshine  of  the  Gospel,  London,  1648. 


56  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

ment  to  twenty-nine  rules,  all  breathing  a  desire  to 
conform  themselves  to  English  customs.1  They 
requested  to  have  a  town  given  them  within  the 
bounds  of  Concord,  near  unto  the  English.  When 
this  question  was  propounded  by  Tahattawan,  be 
was  asked,  why  he  desired  a  town  so  near,  when 
there  was  more  room  for  them  up  in  the  country  ? 
The  Sachem  replied,  that  he  knew  if  the  Indians 
dwelt  far  from  the  English,  they  would  not  so  much 
care  to  pray,  nor  could  they  be  so  ready  to  hear  the 
word  of  God,  but  would  be,  all  one,  Indians  still ; 
but  dwelling  near  the  English,  he  hoped  it  might 
be  otherwise  with  them  then.  We,  who  see  in  the 
squalid  remnants  of  the  twenty  tribes  of  Massachu 
setts,  the  final  failure  of  this  benevolent  enterprise, 
can  hardly  learn  without  emotion,  the  earnestness 
with  which  the  most  sensible  individuals  of  the 
copper  race  held  on  to  the  new  hope  they  had  con 
ceived,  of  being  elevated  to  equality  with  their  civ 
ilized  brother.  It  is  piteous  to  see  their  self-dis 
trust  in  their  request  to  remain  near  the  English, 
and  their  unanimous  entreaty  to  Capt.  Willard,  to 
be  their  Recorder,  being  very  solicitous  that  what 
they  did  agree  upon  might  be  faithfully  kept  with 
out  alteration.  It  was  remarkable  that  the  preach 
ing  was  not  wholly  new  to  them.  "  Their  forefa 
thers,"  the  Indians  told  Eliot,  "  did  know  God,  but 
1  See  them  in  Sliattuck,  p.  22. 


AT  CONCORD.  57 

after  this,  they  fell  into  a  deep  sleep,  and  when  they 
did  awake,  they  quite  forgot  him."  l 

At  the  instance  of  Eliot,  in  1651,  their  desire  was 
granted  by  the  General  Court,  and  Nashobah,  lying 
near  Nagog  pond,  now  partly  in  Littleton,  partly  in 
Acton,  became  an  Indian  town,  where  a  Christian 
worship  was  established  under  an  Indian  ruler  and 
teacher.2  Wilson  relates,  that,  at  their  meetings, 
"  the  Indians  sung  a  psalm,  made  Indian  by  Eliot, 
in  one  of  our  ordinary  English  tunes,  melodiously."  3 
Such  was,  for  half  a  century,  the  success  of  the  gen 
eral  enterprise,  that,  in  1676,  there  were  five  hun 
dred  and  sixty-seven  praying  Indians,  and  in  1689, 
twenty-four  Indian  preachers,  and  eighteen  assem 
blies. 

Meantime,  Concord  increased  in  territory  and 
population.  The  lands  were  divided ;  highways 
were  cut  from  farm  to  farm,  and  from  this  town  to 
Boston.  A  military  company  had  been  organized 
in  1636.  The  Pequots,  the  terror  of  the  farmer, 
were  exterminated  in  1637.  Capt.  Underbill,  in 
1638,  declared,  that  "  the  new  plantations  of  Ded- 
ham  and  Concord  do  afford  large  accommodation, 
and  will  contain  abundance  of  people."  4  In  1639, 
our  first  selectmen,  Mr.  Flint,  Lt.  "Willard,  and 
Richard  Griffin  were  appointed.5  And,  in  1640, 

1  Shepard,  p.  9.  4  News  from  America,  p.  22. 

2  Shattuck,  p.  27.  5  Shattuck,  p.  19. 

3  Wilson's  Letter,  1651. 


58  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

when  the  colony  rate  was  <£1200,  Concord  was  as 
sessed  X50.1  The  country  already  began  to  yield 
more  than  was  consumed  by  the  inhabitants.2  The 
very  great  immigration  from  England  made  the 
lands  more  valuable  every  year,  and  supplied  a  mar 
ket  for  the  produce.  In  1643,  the  colony  was  so 
numerous,  that  it  became  expedient  to  divide  it  into 
four  counties,  Concord  being  included  in  Middlesex.3 
In  1644,  the  town  contained  sixty  families. 

But,  in  1640,  all  immigration  ceased,  and  the 
country  produce  and  farm-stock  depreciated.4  Other 
difficulties  accrued.  The  fish,  which  had  been  the 
abundant  manure  of  the  settlers,  was  found  to  in 
jure  the  land.5  The  river,  at  this  period,  seems  to 
have  caused  some  distress  now  by  its  overflow,  now 
by  its  drought.6  A  cold  and  wet  summer  blighted 
the  corn  ;  enormous  flocks  of  pigeons  beat  down  and 
eat  up  all  sorts  of  English  grain ;  and  the  crops 
suffered  much  from  mice.7  New  plantations  and 
better  land  had  been  opened,  far  and  near ;  and 
whilst  many  of  the  colonists  at  Boston  thought  to 

1  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  p.  2. 

2  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  90. 

8  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  112. 

4  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  p.  21. 

5  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  94. 

6  Bulkeley's  Gospel  Covenant,  p.  209. 

7  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  p.  94. 


AT  CONCORD.  59 

remove,  or  did  remove  to  England,  the  Concord 
people  became  uneasy,  and  looked  around  for  new 
seats.  In  1643,  one  seventh  or  one  eighth  part  of 
the  inhabitants  went  to  Connecticut  with  Rev.  Mr. 
Jones,  and  settled  Fairfield.  Weakened  by  this 
loss,  the  people  begged  to  be  released  from  a  part 
of  their  rates,  to  which  the  General  Court  con 
sented.1  Mr.  Bulkeley  dissuaded  his  people  from 
removing,  and  admonished  them  to  increase  their 
faith  with  their  griefs.  Even  this  check  which  be 
fell  them  acquaints  us  with  the  rapidity  of  their 
growth,  for  the  good  man,  in  dealing  with  his  peo 
ple,  taxes  them  with  luxury.  "  We  pretended  to 
come  hither,"  he  says,  "  for  ordinances ;  but  now 
ordinances  are  light  matters  with  us  ;  we  are  turned 
after  the  prey.  We  have  among  us  excess  and 
pride  of  life  ;  pride  in  apparel,  daintiness  in  diet, 
and  that  in  those  who,  in  times  past,  would  have 
been  satisfied  with  bread.  This  is  the  sin  of  the 
loivest  of  the  people"  2  Better  evidence  could  not 
be  desired  of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  settlement. 

The  check  was  but  momentary.  The  earth 
teemed  with  fruits.  The  people  on  the  bay  built 
ships,  and  found  the  way  to  the  West  Indies,  with 
pipe-staves,  lumber  and  fish ;  and  the  country  people 
speedily  learned  to  supply  themselves  with  sugar, 

1  Shattuck,  p.  16. 

2  Gospel  Covenant,  p.  301. 


60  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

tea  and  molasses.  The  college  had  been  already 
gathered  in  1638.  Now  the  school  house  went  up. 
The  General  Court,  in  1647,  "  to  the  end  that  learn 
ing  may  not  be  buried  in  the  graves  of  our  fore 
fathers,  Ordered,  that  every  township,  after  the 
Lord  had  increased  them  to  the  number  of  fifty 
house-holders,  shall  appoint  one  to  teach  all  chil 
dren  to  write  and  read ;  and  where  any  town  shall 
increase  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  families, 
they  shall  set  up  a  Grammar  school,  the  masters 
thereof  being  able  to  instruct  youth  so  far  as  they 
may  be  fitted  for  the  University."  l  With  these 
requirements  Concord  not  only  complied,  but,  in 

1653,  subscribed  a  sum  for  several  years  to  the  sup 
port  of  Harvard  College.2 

But  a  new  and  alarming  public  distress  retarded 
the  growth  of  this,  as  of  the  sister  towns  during 
more  than  twenty  years  from  1654  to  1676.  In 

1654,  the  four  united  New  England  Colonies  agreed 
to  raise  270  foot  and  40  horse,  to  reduce  Ninigret, 
Sachem  of  the  Niantics,  and  appointed  Major  Si 
mon  Willard,  of  this  town,  to  the  command.3     This 
war  seems  to  have  been  pressed  by  three  of  the  col 
onies,  and   reluctantly  entered    by  Massachusetts. 
Accordingly,  Major  Willard  did  the  least  he  could, 

1  Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i.  p.  498. 

2  Shattnck,  p.  45. 

3  Hutchinsou,  vol.  i.  p.  172. 


AT  CONCORD.  61 

and  incurred  the  censure  of  the  Commissioners,  who 
write  to  their  "  loving  friend  Major  Willard,"  "  that 
they  leave  to  his  consideration  the  inconveniences 
arising  from  his  non-attendance  to  his  commission." 1 
This  expedition  was  but  the  introduction  of  the  war 
with  King  Philip.  In  1670,  the  Wampanoags  be 
gan  to  grind  their  hatchets,  and  mend  their  guns, 
and  insult  the  English.  Philip  surrendered  seventy 
guns  to  the  Commissioners  in  Taunton  Meeting 
house,2  but  revenged  his  humiliation  a  few  years 
after,  by  carrying  fire  and  the  tomahawk  into  the 
English  villages.  From  Narraganset  to  the  Con 
necticut  River,  the  scene  of  war  was  shifted  as  fast 
as  these  red  hunters  could  traverse  the  forest.  Con 
cord  was  a  military  post.  The  inactivity  of  Major 
Willard,  in  Ninigret's  war,  had  lost  him  no  confi 
dence.  He  marched  from  Concord  to  Brookfield, 
in  season  to  save  the  people  whose  houses  had  been 
burned,  and  who  had  taken  shelter  in  a  fortified 
house.3  But  he  fought  with  disadvantage  against 
an  enemy  who  must  be  hunted  before  every  battle. 
Some  flourishing  towns  were  burned.  John  Mon- 
oco,  a  formidable  savage,  boasted  that  "he  had 

1  See  his  instructions  from  the   Commissioners,  his  narra 
tive,  and  the  Commissioners'  letter  to  him  in  Hutchinson's 
Collection,  pp.  261-270. 

2  Hutchinson,  History,  vol.  i.  254. 

3  Hubbard,  Indian  Wars,  p.  119,  ed.  1801. 


62  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

burned  Medfield  and  Lancaster,  and  would  burn 
Groton,  Concord,  Watertown  and  Boston  ;  "  adding, 
"  wliat  me  will,  me  do."  He  did  burn  Groton,  but 
before  he  had  executed  the  remainder  of  his  threat 
he  was  hanged,  in  Boston,  in  September,  167G.1 

A  still  more  formidable  enemy  was  removed,  in 
the  same  year,  by  the  capture  of  Canonchet,  the 
faithful  ally  of  Philip,  who  was  soon  afterwards 
shot  at  Stonington.  He  stoutly  declared  to  the 
Commissioners  that  "  he  would  not  deliver  up  a 
Wampanoag,  nor  the  paring  of  a  Wampanoag's 
nail,"  and  when  he  was  told  that  his  sentence  was 
death,  he  said  "  he  liked  it  well  that  he  was  to  die 
before  his  heart  was  soft,  or  he  had  spoken  any 
thing  unworthy  of  himself."  2 

We  know  beforehand  who  must  conquer  in  that 
unequal  struggle.  The  red  man  may  destroy  here 
and  there  a  straggler,  as  a  wild  beast  may  ;  he  may 
fire  a  farm-house,  or  a  village ;  but  the  association 
of  the  white  men  and  their  arts  of  war  give  them 
an  overwhelming  advantage,  and  in  the  first  blast 
of  their  trumpet  we  already  hear  the  flourish  of  vic 
tory.  I  confess  what  chiefly  interests  me,  in  the 
annals  of  that  war,  is  the  grandeur  of  spirit  exhib 
ited  by  a  few  of  the  Indian  chiefs.  A  nameless 
Wampanoag  who  was  put  to  death  by  the  Mohi 
cans,  after  cruel  tortures,  was  asked  by  his  butch- 

1  Hubbard,  p.  201.  2  Hubbard,  p.  185. 


AT  CONCORD.  63 

ers  during  the  torture,  how  he  liked  the  war  ? —  he 
said,  "  he  found  it  as  sweet  as  sugar  was  to  Eng 
lishmen."  1 

The  only  compensation  which  war  offers  for  its 
manifold  mischiefs,  is  in  the  great  personal  qualities 
to  which  it  gives  scope  and  occasion.  The  virtues 
of  patriotism  and  of  prodigious  courage  and  address 
were  exhibited  on  both  sides,  and,  in  many  in 
stances,  by  women.  The  historian  of  Concord  has 
preserved  an  instance  of  the  resolution  of  one  of 
the  daughters  of  the  town.  Two  young  farmers, 
Abraham  and  Isaac  Shepherd,  had  set  their  sister 
Mary,  a  girl  of  fifteen  years,  to  watch  whilst  they 
threshed  grain  in  the  barn.  The  Indians  stole 
upon  her  before  she  was  aware,  and  her  brothers 
were  slain.  She  was  carried  captive  into  the  In 
dian  country,  but,  at  night,  whilst  her  captors  were 
asleep,  she  plucked  a  saddle  from  under  the  head 
of  one  of  them,  took  a  horse  they  had  stolen  from 
Lancaster,  and  having  girt  the  saddle  on,  she 
mounted,  swam  across  the  Nashua  river,  and  rodo 
through  the  forest  to  her  home.2 

With  the  tragical  end  of  Philip,  the  war  ended. 
Beleaguered  in  his  own  country,  his  corn  cut  down, 
his  piles  of  meal  and  other  provision  wasted  by 
the  English,  it  was  only  a  great  thaw  in  January, 
that,  melting  the  snow  and  opening  the  earth,  ena- 
1  Hubbard,  p.  245.  2  Shattuck,  p.  55. 


64  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

bled  his  poor  followers  to  come  at  the  ground-nuts, 
else  they  had  starved.  Hunted  by  Captain  Church, 
he  fled  from  one  swamp  to  another  ;  his  brother, 
his  uncle,  his  sister,  and  his  beloved  squaw  being 
taken  or  slain,  he  was  at  last  shot  down  by  an  In 
dian  deserter,  as  he  fled  alone  in  the  dark  of  the 
morning,  not  far  from  his  own  fort.1 

Concord  suffered  little  from  the  war.  This  is 
to  be  attributed  no  doubt,  in  part,  to  the  fact  that 
troops  were  generally  quartered  here,  and  that  it 
was  the  residence  of  many  noted  soldiers.  Tradi 
tion  finds  another  cause  in  the  sanctity  of  its  minis 
ter.  The  elder  Bulkeley  was  gone.  In  1G59,2  his 
bones  were  laid  at  rest  in  the  forest.  But  the  man 
tle  of  his  piety  and  of  the  people's  affection  fell 
upon  his  son  Edward,3  the  fame  of  whose  prayers, 
it  is  said,  once  saved  Concord  from  an  attack  of  the 
Indian.4  A  great  defence  undoubtedly  was  the 
village  of  Praying  Indians,  until  this  settlement  fell 
a  victim  to  the  envenomed  prejudice  against  their 
countrymen.  The  worst  feature  in  the  history  of 
those  years,  is,  that  no  man  spake  for  the  Indian. 
When  the  Dutch,  or  the  French,  or  the  English 
royalist  disagreed  with  the  Colony,  there  was  al- 

1  Hubbard,  p.  260. 

2  Neal,  History  of  Neiu  England,  vol.  i.  p.  321. 
8  Mather,  Magnalia,  vol.  i.  p.  363. 

4  Shattuck,  p.  59. 


AT  CONCORD.  65 

ways  found  a  Dutch,  or  French,  or  tory  party,  — 
an  earnest  minority,  —  to  keep  things  from  extrem 
ity.  But  the  Indian  seemed  to  inspire  such  a  feel 
ing  as  the  wild  beast  inspires  in  the  people  near  his 
den.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  Concord  to  have  per 
mitted  a  disgraceful  outrage  upon  the  friendly  In 
dians  settled  within  its  limits,  in  February,  1676, 
which  ended  in  their  forcible  expulsion  from  the 
town. 

This  painful  incident  is  but  too  just  an  example 
of  the  measure  which  the  Indians  have  generally  re 
ceived  from  the  whites.  For  them  the  heart  of 
charity,  of  humanity,  was  stone.  After  Philip's 
death,  their  strength  was  irrecoverably  broken. 
They  never  more  disturbed  the  interior  settlements, 
and  a  few  vagrant  families,  that  are  now  pension 
ers  on  the  bounty  of  Massachusetts,  are  all  that  is 
left  of  the  twenty  tribes. 

"  Alas  !  for  them  —  their  day  is  o'  er, 
Their  fires  are  out  from  hill  and  shore, 
No  more  for  them  the  wild  deer  bounds, 
The  plough  is  on  their  hunting  grounds  ; 
The  pale  man's  axe  rings  in  their  woods, 
The  pale  man's  sail  skims  o'er  their  floods, 
Their  pleasant  springs  are  dry."  l 

I  turn  gladly  to  the  progress  of  our  civil  history. 
Before  1666,  15,000  acres  had  been  added  by 

1  Sprague's  Centennial  Ode. 


66  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

grants  of  the  General  Court  to  the  original  terri 
tory  of  the  town,1  so  that  Concord  then  included 
the  greater  part  of  the  towns  of  Bedford,  Acton, 
Lincoln  and  Carlisle. 

In  the  great  growth  of  the  country,  Concord  par 
ticipated,  as  is  manifest  from  its  increasing  polls 
and  increased  rates.  Randolph  at  this  period  writes 
to  the  English  Government,  concerning  the  country 
towns ;  "  The  farmers  are  numerous  and  wealthy, 
live  in  good  houses  ;  are  given  to  hospitality  ;  and 
make  good  advantage  by  their  corn,  cattle,  poultry, 
butter  and  cheese."  2  Edward  Bulkeley  was  the 
pastor,  until  his  death,  in  1696.  His  youngest 
brother,  Peter,  was  deputy  from  Concord,  and  was 
chosen  speaker  of  the  house  of  deputies  in  1676. 
The  following  year,  he  was  sent  to  England,  with 
Mr.  Stoughtoii,  as  agent  for  the  colony ;  and,  on 
his  return,  in  1685,  was  a  royal  councillor.  But  I 
am  sorry  to  find  that  the  servile  Randolph  speaks 
of  him  with  marked  respect.8  It  would  seem  that 
his  visit  to  England  had  made  him  a  courtier.  In 
1689,  Concord  partook  of  the  general  indignation 
of  the  province  against  Andros.  A  company 
marched  to  the  capital  under  Lieut.  Heald,  forming 
a  part  of  that  body  concerning  which  we  are  in- 

1  Shattuck. 

2  Hutchinson's  Collection,  p.  484. 

3  Hutchinson's  Collection,  pp.  543,  548,  557,  566. 


AT  CONCORD.  67 

formed,  "  the  country  people  came  armed  into  Bos 
ton,  on  the  afternoon  (of  Thursday,  18th  April,) 
in  such  rage  and  heat,  as  made  us  all  tremble  to 
think  what  would  follow  ;  for  nothing  would  satisfy 
them  but  that  the  governor  must  be  bound  in  chains 
or  cords,  and  put  in  a  more  secure  place,  and  that 
they  would  see  done  before  they  went  away  ;  and 
to  satisfy  them  he  was  guarded  by  them  to  the 
fort."  l  But  the  town  records  of  that  day  confine 
themselves  to  descriptions  of  lands,  and  to  confer 
ences  with  the  neighboring  towns  to  run  boundary 
lines.  In  1G99,  so  broad  was  their  territory,  I  find 
the  selectmen  running  the  lines  with  Chelmsford, 
Cambridge  and  Watertowii.2  Some  interesting 
peculiarities  in  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
time,  appear  in  the  town's  books.  Proposals  of 
marriage  were  made  by  the  parents  of  the  parties, 
and  minutes  of  such  private  agreements  sometimes 
entered  on  the  clerk's  records.3  The  public  charity 
seems  to 'have  been  bestowed  in  a  manner  now  ob 
solete.  The  town  lends  its  commons  as  pastures, 
to  poor  men ;  and  "  being  informed  of  the  great 
present  want  of  Thomas  Pellit,  gave  order  to 
Stephen  Ilosmer,  to  deliver  a  town  cow,  of  a  black 
color,  with  a  white  face,  unto  said  Pellit,  for  his 
present  supply."  4 

1  Ilutchinson's  History,  vol.  i.  p.  336.       2  Town  Records. 

3  See  Appendix,  Note  A.  March  and  April. 

4  Records,  July,  1698. 


68  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

From  the  beginning  to  the  middle  of  the  eight 
eenth  century,  our  records  indicate  no  interruption 
of  the  tranquillity  of  the  inhabitants,  either  in 
church  or  in  civil  affairs.  After  the  death  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Estabrook,  in  1711,  it  was  propounded  at  the 
town  meeting,  "  whether  one  of  the  three  gentle 
men  lately  improved  here  in  preaching,  namely,  Mr. 
John  Whiting,  Mr.  Holyoke  and  Mr.  Prescott  shall 
be  now  chosen  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  ?  Voted 
affirmatively."  l  Mr.  Whiting,  who  was  chosen, 
was,  we  are  told  in  his  epitaph,  "  a  universal  lover 
of  mankind."  The  charges  of  education  and  of  leg 
islation,  at  this  period,  seem  to  have  afflicted  the 
town  ;  for,  they  vote  to  petition  the  General  Court, 
to  be  eased  of  the  law  relating  to  providing  a  school 
master ;  happily,  the  Court  refused;  and  in  1712,  the 
selectmen  agreed  with  Capt.  James  Minott,  "  for 
his  son  Timothy  to  keep  the  school  at  the  school- 
house  for  the  town  of  Concord,  for  half  a  year  be 
ginning  2d  June ;  and  if  any  scholar  shall  come, 
within  the  said  time,  for  laming  exceeding  his  son's 
ability,  the  said  Captain  doth  agree  to  instruct  them 
himself  in  the  tongues,  till  the  above  said  time  be 
fulfilled  ;  for  which  service,  the  town  is  to  pay  Capt. 
Minott  ten  pounds."  2  Capt.  Minott  seems  to  have 
served  our  prudent  fathers  in  the  double  capacity 
of  teacher  and  representative.  It  is  an  article  in 

1  Records,  Nov.  1711.  2  Records,  May,  1712. 


AT  CONCORD.  69 

the  selectmen's  warrant  for  the  town  meeting,  "  to 
see  if  the  town  will  lay  in  for  a  representative  not 
exceeding  four  pounds."  Captain  Minott  was 
chosen,  and  after  the  General  Court  was  adjourned 
received  of  the  town  for  his  services,  an  allowance 
of  three  shillings  per  day.  The  country  was  not  yet 
so  thickly  settled  but  that  the  inhabitants  suffered 
from  wolves  and  wild-cats,  which  infested  the 
woods  ;  since  bounties  of  twenty  shillings  are  given 
as  late  as  1735,  to  Indians  and  whites,  for  the  heads 
of  these  animals,  after  the  constable  has  cut  off  the 


ears. 


Mr.  Whiting  was  succeeded  in  the  pastoral  of 
fice  by  Rev.  Daniel  Bliss,  in  1738.  Soon  after  his 
ordination,  the  town  seems  to  have  been  divided  by 
ecclesiastical  discords.  In  1741,  the  celebrated 
Whitfield  preached  here,  in  the  open  air,  to  a  great 
congregation.  Mr.  Bliss  heard  that  great  orator 
with  delight,  and  by  his  earnest  sympathy  with 
him,  in  opinion  and  practice,  gave  offence  to  a  part 
of  his  people.  Party  and  mutual  councils  were 
called,  but  no  grave  charge  was  made  good  against 
him.  I  find,  in  the  Church  Records,  the  charges 
preferred  against  him,  his  answer  thereto,  and  the 
result  of  the  Council.  The  charges  seem  to  have 
been  made  by  the  lovers  of  order  and  moderation 
against  Mr.  Bliss,  as  a  favorer  of  religious  excite- 
1  Records,  1735. 


70  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

ments.  His  answer  to  one  of  the  counts  breathes 
such  true  piety  that  I  cannot  forbear  to  quote  it. 
The  ninth  allegation  is  "  That  in  praying  for  him 
self,  in  a  church  meeting,  in  December  last,  he 
said,  '  he  was  a  poor  vile  worm  of  the  dust,  that 
was  allowed  as  Mediator  between  God  and  this  peo 
ple.'  '  To  this  Mr.  Bliss  replied,  "  In  the  prayer 
you  speak  of,  Jesus  Christ  was  acknowledged  as 
the  only  Mediator  between  God  and  man  ;  at  which 
time,  I  was  filled  with  wonder,  that  such  a  sinful 
and  worthless  worm  as  I  am,  was  allowed  to  repre 
sent  Christ,  in  any  manner,  even  so  far  as  to  be 
bringing  the  petitions  and  thank-offerings  of  the 
people  unto  God,  and  God's  will  and  truths  to  the 
people  ;  and  used  the  word  Mediator  in  some  differ 
ing  light  from  that  you  have  given  it ;  but  I  confess 
I  was  soon  uneasy  that  I  had  used  the  word,  lest 
some  would  put  a  wrong  meaning  thereupon."  1  The 
Council  admonished  Mr.  Bliss  of  some  improprieties 
of  expression,  but  bore  witness  to  his  purity  and 
fidelity  in  his  office.  In  1764,  Whitfield  preached 
again  at  Concord,  on  Sunday  afternoon ;  Mr.  Bliss 
preached  in  the  morning,  and  the  Concord  people 
thought  their  minister  gave  them  the  better  ser 
mon  of  the  two.  It  was  also  his  last. 

The  planting  of  the  Colony  was  the  effect  of  re 
ligious  principle.     The  Revolution  was  the  fruit  of 
1  Church  Records,  July,  1742. 


AT  CONCORD.  71 

another  principle,  —  the  devouring  thirst  for  jus 
tice.  From  the  appearance  of  the  article  in  the 
Selectmen's  warrant,  in  1765,  "  to  see  if  the  town 
will  give  the  Kepresentative  any  instructions  about 
any  important  affair  to  be  transacted  by  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  concerning  the  Stamp  Act ;  " 1  to  the 
peace  of  1783,  the  Town  Records  breathe  a  resolute 
and  warlike  spirit,  so  bold  from  the  first  as  hardly 
to  admit  of  increase. 

It  would  be  impossible  on  this  occasion  to  recite 
all  these  patriotic  papers.  I  must  content  myself 
with  a  few  brief  extracts.  On  the  24th  January, 
1774,  in  answer  to  letters  received  from  the  united 
committees  of  correspondence,  in  the  vicinity  of 
Boston,  the  town  say  : 

"  We  cannot  possibly  view  with  indifference  the 
past  and  present  obstinate  endeavors  of  the  enemies 
of  this,  as  well  as  the  mother  country,  to  rob  us  of 
those  rights,  that  are  the  distinguishing  glory  and 
felicity  of  this  land ;  rights,  that  we  are  obliged  to 
no  power,  under  heaven,  for  the  enjoyment  of ;  as 
they  are  the  fruit  of  the  heroic  enterprises  of  the 
first  settlers  of  these  American  colonies.  And 
though  we  cannot  but  be  alarmed  at  the  great  ma 
jority,  in  the  British  parliament,  for  the  imposition 
of  unconstitutional  taxes  on  the  colonies,  yet,  it 
gives  life  and  strength  to  every  attempt  to  oppose 
1  Records. 


72  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

them,  that  not  only  the  people  of  this,  but  the  neigh 
boring  provinces  are  remarkably  united  in  the  im 
portant  and  interesting  opposition,  which,  as  it  suc 
ceeded  before,  in  some  measure,  by  the  blessing  of 
heaven,  so,  we  cannot  but  hope  it  will  be  attended 
with  still  greater  success,  in  future. 

"Resolved,  That  these  colonies  have  been  and 
still  are  illegally  taxed  by  the  British  parliament, 
as  they  are  not  virtually  represented  therein. 

"  That  the  purchasing  commodities  subject  to 
such  illegal  taxation  is  an  explicit,  though  an  im 
pious  and  sordid  resignation  of  the  liberties  of  this 
free  and  happy  people. 

"  That,  as  the  British  parliament  have  empowered 
the  East  India  Company  to  export  their  tea  into 
America,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue 
from  hence ;  to  render  the  design  abortive,  we  will 
not,  in  this  town,  either  by  ourselves,  or  any  from 
or  under  us,  buy,  sell,  or  use  any  of  the  East  India 
Company's  tea,  or  any  other  tea,  whilst  there  is  a 
duty  for  raising  a  revenue  thereon  in  America ; 
neither  will  we  suffer  any  such  tea  to  be  used  in 
our  families. 

"  That,  all  such  persons  as  shall  purchase,  sell,  or 
use  any  such  tea,  shall,  for  the  future,  be  deemed 
unfriendly  to  the  happy  constitution  of  this  coun 
try. 

"  That,  in  conjunction  with  our  brethren  in  Amer- 


AT  CONCORD.  73 

ica,  we  will  risk  our  fortunes,  and  even  our  lives,  in 
defence  of  his  majesty,  King  George  the  Third,  his 
person,  crown  and  dignity ;  and  will,  also,  with  the 
same  resolution,  as  his  free-born  subjects  in  this 
country,  to  the  utmost  of  our  power,  defend  all  our 
rights  inviolate  to  the  latest  posterity. 

"That,  if  any  person  or  persons,  inhabitants  of 
this  province,  so  long  as  there  is  a  duty  on  tea,  shall 
import  any  tea  from  the  India  House,  in  England, 
or  be  factors  for  the  East  India  Company,  we  will 
treat  them,  in  an  eminent  degree,  as  enemies  to 
their  country,  and  with  contempt  and  detestation. 

"  That,  we  think  it  our  duty,  at  this  critical  time 
of  our  public  affairs,  to  return  our  hearty  thanks  to 
the  town  of  Boston,  for  every  rational  measure  they 
have  taken  for  the  preservation  or  recovery  of  our 
invaluable  rights  and  liberties  infringed  upon ;  and 
we  hope,  should  the  state  of  our  public  affairs  re 
quire  it,  that  they  will  still  remain  watchful  and 
persevering ;  with  a  steady  zeal  to  espy  out  every 
thing  that  shall  have  a  tendency  to  subvert  our 
happy  constitution."  l 

On  the  27th  June,  near  three  hundred  persons, 
upwards  of  twenty-one  years  of  age,  inhabitants  of 
Concord,  entered  into  a  covenant,  "  solemnly  en 
gaging  with  each  other,  in  the  presence  of  God,  to 
suspend  all  commercial  intercourse  with  Great  Brit- 
1  Town  Records. 


74  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

ain,  until  the  act  for  blocking  the  harbor  of  Boston 
be  repealed  ;  and  neither  to  buy  nor  consume  any 
merchandise  imported  from  Great  Britain,  nor  to 
deal  with  those  who  do."  l 

In  August,  a  County  Convention  met  in  this 
town,  to  deliberate  upon  the  alarming  state  of  pub 
lic  affairs,  and  published  an  admirable  report. 2  In 
September,  incensed  at  the  new  royal  law  which 
made  the  judges  dependent  on  the  crown,  the 
inhabitants  assembled  on  the  common,  and  for 
bade  the  justices  to  open  the  court  of  sessions. 
This  little  town  then  assumed  the  sovereignty.  It 
was  judge  and  jury  and  council  and  king.  On  the 
26th  of  the  month,  the  whole  town  resolved  itself 
into  a  committee  of  safety,  "  to  suppress  all  riots, 
tumults,  and  disorders  in  said  town,  and  to  aid  all 
untainted  magistrates  in  the  execution  of  the  laws 
of  the  land."  8  It  was  then  voted,  to  raise  one  or 
more  companies  of  minute  men,  by  enlistment,  to 
be  paid  by  the  town  whenever  called  out  of  town  ; 
and  to  provide  arms  and  ammunition,  "  that  those 
who  are  unable  to  purchase  them  themselves,  may 
have  the  advantage  of  them,  if  necessity  calls  for 
it."  4  In  October,  the  Provincial  Congress  met  in 
Concord.  John  Hancock  was  President.  This 

1  Town  Records. 

2  See  the  Report  in  Shattuck,  p.  82. 

8  Records.  4  Records. 


AT  CONCORD. 

body  was  composed  of  the  foremost  patriots, 
adopted   those    efficient  measures  whose  progress 
and  issue  belong  to  the  history  of  the  nation.1 

The  clergy  of  New  England  were,  for  the  most 
part,  zealous  promoters  of  the  revolution.  A  deep 
religious  sentiment  sanctified  the  thirst  for  liberty. 
All  the  military  movements  in  this  town  were  sol 
emnized  by  acts  of  public  worship.  In  January, 
1775,  a  meeting  was  held  for  the  enlisting  of  min 
ute  men.  Rev.  William  Emerson,  the  Chaplain  of 
the  Provincial  Congress,  preached  to  the  people. 
Sixty  men  enlisted  and,  in  a  few  days,  many  more. 
On  13 tli  March,  at  a  general  review  of  all  the  mili 
tary  companies,  he  preached  to  a  very  full  assem 
bly,  taking  for  his  text,  2  Chronicles  xiii.  12, 
"  And,  behold,  God  himself  is  with  us  for  our  cap 
tain,  and  his  priests  with  sounding  trumpets  to  cry 
alarm  against  you." 2  It  is  said  that  all  the  ser 
vices  of  that  day  made  a  deep  impression  on  the 
people,  even  to  the  singing  of  the  psalm. 

A  large  amount  of  military  stores  had  been  de 
posited  in  this  town,  by  order  of  the  Provincial 
Committee  of  Safety.  It  was  to  destroy  those 
stores,  that  the  troops  who  were  attacked  in  this 
town,  on  the  19th  April,  1775,  were  sent  hither 
by  General  Gage. 

1  Bradford,  History  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  i.  p.  353. 

2  Rev.  W.  Emerson's  MS.  Journal. 


76  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

The  story  of  that  day  is  well  known.  In  these 
peaceful  fields,  for  the  first  time  since  a  hundred 
years,  the  drum  and  alarm-gun  were  heard,  and 
the  farmers  snatched  down  their  rusty  firelocks 
from  the  kitchen  walls,  to  make  good  the  resolute 
words  of  their  town  debates.  In  the  field  where 
the  western  abutment  of  the  old  bridge  may  still 
be  seen,  about  half  a  mile  from  this  spot,  the  first 
organized  resistance  was  made  to  the  British  arms. 
There  the  Americans  first  shed  British  blood. 
Eight  hundred  British  soldiers,  under  the  command 
of  Lieut.-Col.  Francis  Smith,  had  marched  from 
Boston  to  Concord ;  at  Lexington  had  fired  upon 
the  brave  handful  of  militia,  for  which  a  speedy 
revenge  was  reaped  by  the  same  militia  in  the  after 
noon.  When  they  entered  Concord,  they  found 
the  militia  and  minute-men  assembled  under  the 
command  of  Col.  Barrett  and  Major  Buttrick. 
This  little  battalion,  though  in  their  hasty  council 
some  were  urgent  to  stand  their  ground,  retreated 
before  the  enemy  to  the  high  land  on  the  other 
bank  of  the  river,  to  wait  for  reinforcement.  Col. 
Barrett  ordered  the  troops  not  to  fire,  unless  fired 
upon.  The  British  following  them  across  the 
bridge,  posted  two  companies,  amounting  to  about 
one  hundred  men,  to  guard  the  bridge,  and  secure 
the  return  of  the  plundering  party.  Meantime, 
the  men  of  Acton,  Bedford,  Lincoln  and  Carlisle, 


AT  CONCORD.  11 

all  once  included  in  Concord,  remembering  their 
parent  town  in  the  hour  of  danger,  arrived  and  fell 
into  the  ranks  so  fast,  that  Major  Buttrick  found 
himself  superior  in  number  to  the  enemy's  party  at 
the  bridge.  And  when  the  smoke  began  to  rise 
from  the  village  where  the  British  were  burning 
cannon-carriages  and  military  stores,  the  Americans 
resolved  to  force  their  way  into  town.  The  Eng 
lish  beginning  to  pluck  up  some  of  the  planks  of 
the  bridge,  the  Americans  quickened  their  pace, 
and  the  British  fired  one  or  two  shots  up  the  river, 
(our  ancient  friend  here,  Master  Blood,  saw  the 
water  struck  by  the  first  ball ;)  then  a  single  gun, 
the  ball  from  which  wounded  Luther  Blanchard 
and  Jonas  Brown,  and  then  a  volley,  by  which 
Captain  Isaac  Davis  and  Abner  Hosmer  of  Acton 
were  instantly  killed.  Major  Buttrick  leaped  from 
the  ground,  and  gave  the  command  to  fire,  which 
was  repeated  in  a  simultaneous  cry  by  all  his  men. 
The  Americans  fired,  and  killed  two  men  and 
wounded  eight.  A  head  stone  and  a  foot  stone,  on 
this  bank  of  the  river,  mark  the  place  where  these 
first  victims  lie.  The  British  retreated  immediately 
towards  the  village,  and  were  joined  by  two  compa 
nies  of  grenadiers,  whom  the  noise  of  the  firing  had 
hastened  to  the  spot.  The  militia  and  minute 
men,  —  every  one  from  that  moment  being  his  own 
commander,  —  ran  over  the  hills  opposite  the  battle- 


78  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

field,  and  across  the  great  fields,  into  the  east  quar 
ter  of  the  town,  to  waylay  the  enemy,  and  annoy 
his  retreat.  The  British,  as  soon  as  they  were  re 
joined  by  the  plundering  detachment,  began  that 
disastrous  retreat  to  Boston,  which  was  an  omen  to 
both  parties  of  the  event  of  the  war. 

In  all  the  anecdotes  of  that  day's  events  we  may 
discern  the  natural  action  of  the  people.  It  was 
not  an  extravagant  ebullition  of  feeling,  but  might 
have  been  calculated  on  by  any  one  acquainted 
with  the  spirits  and  habits  of  our  community. 
Those  poor  farmers  who  came  up,  that  day,  to  de 
fend  their  native  soil,  acted  from  the  simplest  in 
stincts.  They  did  not  know  it  was  a  deed  of  fame 
they  were  doing.  These  men  did  not  babble  of 
glory.  They  never  dreamed  their  children  would 
contend  who  had  done  the  most.  They  supposed 
they  had  a  right  to  their  corn  and  their  cattle,  with 
out  paying  tribute  to  any  but  their  own  governors. 
And  as  they  had  no  fear  of  man,  they  yet  did  have 
a  fear  of  God.  Capt.  Charles  Miles,  who  was 
wounded  in  the  pursuit  of  the  enemy,  told  my  ven 
erable  friend  who  sits  by  me,  that  "  he  went  to  the 
services  of  that  day,  with  the  same  seriousness  and 
acknowledgement  of  God,  which  he  carried  to 
church." 

The  presence  of  these  aged  men  who  were  in  arms 
on  that  day,  seems  to  bring  us  nearer  to  it.  The 


AT  CONCORD.  79 

benignant  Providence*  which  has  prolonged  their 
lives  to  this  hour,  gratifies  the  strong  curiosity  of 
the  new  generation.  The  Pilgrims  are  gone  ;  but 
we  see  what  manner  of  persons  they  were  who 
stood  in  the  worst  perils  of  the  Revolution.  We 
hold  by  the  hand  the  last  of  the  invincible  men  of 
old,  and  confirm  from  living  lips  the  sealed  records 
of  time. 

And  you,  my  fathers,  whom  God  and  the  history 
of  your  country  have  ennobled,  may  well  bear  a 
chief  part  in  keeping  this  peaceful  birth-day  of  our 
town.  You  are  indeed  extraordinary  heroes.  If 
ever  men  in  arms  had  a  spotless  cause,  you  had. 
You  have  fought  a  good  fight.  And  having  quit 
you  like  men  in  the  battle,  you  have  quit  yourselves 
like  men  in  your  virtuous  families ;  in  your  corn 
fields  ;  and  in  society.  We  will  not  hide  your  hon 
orable  gray  hairs  under  perishing  laurel  leaves,  but 
the  eye  of  affection  and  veneration  follows  you. 
You  are  set  apart,  —  and  forever,  —  for  the-  esteem 
and  gratitude  of  the  human  race.  To  you  belongs 
a  better  badge  than  stars  and  ribbons.  This  pros 
pering  country  is  your  ornament,  and  this  expand 
ing  nation  is  multiplying  your  praise  with  millions 
of  tongues. 

The  agitating  events  of  those  days  were  duly  re 
membered  in  the  church.  On  the  second  day  after 
the  affray,  divine  service  was  attended,  in  this 


80  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

house,  by  700  soldiers.  William  Emerson,  the 
pastor,  had  a  hereditary  claim  to  the  affection  of 
the  people,  being  descended  in  the  fourth  genera 
tion  from  Edward  Bulkeley,  son  of  Peter.  But  he 
had  merits  of  his  own.  The  cause  of  the  colonies 
was  so  much  in  his  heart,  that  he  did  not  cease 
to  make  it  the  subject  of  his  preaching  and  his 
prayers,  and  is  said  to  have  deeply  inspired  many 
of  his  people  with  his  own  enthusiasm.  He,  at  least, 
saw  clearly  the  pregnant  consequences  of  the  19th 
April.  I  have  found  within  a  few  days,  among 
some  family  papers,  his  almanac  of  1775,  in  a 
blank  leaf  of  which  he  has  written  a  narrative  of 
the  fight ; l  and,  at  the  close  of  the  month,  he 
writes,  "  This  month  remarkable  for  the  greatest 
events  of  the  present  age."  To  promote  the  same 
cause,  he  asked,  and  obtained  of  the  town,  leave 
to  accept  the  commission  of  chaplain  to  the  North 
ern  army,  at  Ticonderoga,  and  died,  after  a  few 
months,  of  the  distemper  that  prevailed  in  the 
camp. 

In  the  whole  course  of  the  war  the  town  did  not 
depart  from  this  pledge  it  had  given.  Its  little 
population  of  1300  souls  behaved  like  a  party  to 
the  contest.  The  number  of  its  troops  constantly 
in  service  is  very  great.  Its  pecuniary  burdens 
are  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  capital.  The  econ- 
1  See  the  Appendix,  Note  B. 


AT  CONCORD.  81 

omy  so  rigid  which  marked  its  earlier  history,  has 
all  vanished.  It  spends  profusely,  affectionately, 
in  the  service.  "  Since,"  say  the  plaintive  records, 
"  General  Washington,  at  Cambridge,  is  not  able 
to  give  but  24s.  per  cord  for  wood,  for  the  army  ; 
it  is  Voted,  that  this  town  encourage  the  inhabi 
tants  to  supply  the  army,  by  paying  two  dollars 
per  cord,  over  and  above  the  General's  price,  to 
such  as  shall  carry  wood  thither  ;  "  l  and  210  cords 
of  wood  were  carried.2  A  similar  order  is  taken 
respecting  hay.  Whilst  Boston  was  occupied  by 
the  British  troops,  Concord  contributed  to  the  re 
lief  of  the  inhabitants,  £70,  in  money ;  225  bushels 
of  grain  ;  and  a  quantity  of  meat  and  wood. 
When,  presently,  the  poor  of  Boston  were  quar 
tered  by  the  Provincial  Congress  on  the  neighbor 
ing  country,  Concord  received  82  persons  to  its 
hospitality.3  In  the  year  1775,  it  raised  100  min 
ute  men,  and  74  soldiers  to  serve  at  Cambridge. 
In  March,  1776,  145  men  were  raised  by  this  town 
to  serve  at  Dorchester  Heights.4  In  June,  the  Gen 
eral  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  resolved  to  raise 
5,000  militia  for  six  months,  to  reinforce  the  Conti 
nental  army.  "  The  numbers,"  say  they,  "  are 
large,  but  this  Court  has  the  fullest  assurance,  that 
their  brethren,  on  this  occasion,  will  not  confer  with 

1  Records,  Dec.  1775.         3  Shattuck,  p.  125. 

2  Shattuck,  p.  125.  4  Shattuck,  p.  124. 


82  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

flesh  and  blood,  but  will,  without  hesitation,  and 
with  the  utmost  alacrity  and  despatch,  fill  up  the 
numbers  proportioned  to  the  several  towns."  l  On 
that  occasion,  Concord  furnished  67  men,  paying 
them  itself,  at  an  expense  of  £622.  And  so  on, 
with  every  levy,  to  the  end  of  the  war.  For  these 
men  it  was  continually  providing  shoes,  stockings, 
shirts,  coats,  blankets  and  beef.  The  taxes,  which, 
before  the  war,  had  not  much  exceeded  £200  per 
annum,  amounted,  in  the  year  1782,  to  $9,544,  in 
silver.2 

The  great  expense  of  the  war  was  borne  with 
cheerfulness,  whilst  the  war  lasted  ;  but  years 
passed,  after  the  peace,  before  the  debt  was  paid. 
As  soon  as  danger  and  injury  ceased,  the  people 
were  left  at  leisure  to  consider  their  poverty  and 
their  debts.  The  town  records  show  how  slowly 
the  inhabitants  recovered  from  the  strain  of  exces 
sive  exertion.  Their  instructions  to  their  represent 
atives  are  full  of  loud  complaints  of  the  disgrace 
ful  state  of  public  credit,  and  the  excess  of  public 
expenditure.  They  may  be  pardoned,  under  such 
distress,  for  the  mistakes  of  an  extreme  frugality. 
They  fell  into  a  common  error,  not  yet  dismissed 
to  the  moon,  that  the  remedy  was,  to  forbid  the 
great  importation  of  foreign  commodities,  and  to 

1  Bradford,  History  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  ii.  p.  113. 

2  Shattuck,  p.  126. 


AT  CONCORD.  83 

prescribe  by  law  the  prices  of  articles.  The  opera 
tion  of  a  new  government  was  dreaded,  lest  it 
should  prove  expensive,  and  the  country  towns 
thought  it  would  be  cheaper  if  it  were  removed 
from  the  capital.  They  were  jealous  lest  the  Gen 
eral  Court  should  pay  itself  too  liberally,  and  our 
fathers  must  be  forgiven  by  their  charitable  pos 
terity,  if,  in  1782,  before  choosing  a  representative, 
it  was  "Voted,  that  the  person  who  should  be  chosen 
representative  to  the  General  Court  should  receive 
6s.  per  day,  whilst  in  actual  service,  an  account  of 
which  time  he  should  bring  to  the  town,  and  if  it 
should  be  that  the  General  Court  should  resolve, 
that,  their  pay  should  be  more  than  6s.,  then  the 
representative  shall  be  hereby  directed  to  pay  the 
overplus  into  the  town  treasury." 1  This  was  se 
curing  the  prudence  of  the  public  servants. 

But  whilst  the  town  had  its  own  full  share  of  the 
public  distress,  it  was  very  far  from  desiring  relief 
at  the  cost  of  order  and  law.  In  1786,  when  the 
general  sufferings  drove  the  people  in  parts  of  Wor 
cester  and  Hampshire  counties  to  insurrection,  a 
large  party  of  armed  insurgents  arrived  in  this 
town,  on  the  12th  September,  to  hinder  the  sitting 
of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  But  they  found 
110  countenance  here.2  The  same  people  who  had 

1  Records,  May  3. 

2  Bradford,  History  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  i.  p.  2GG,  and  Rec 
ords,  9th  September. 


84  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

been  active  in  a  County  Convention  to  consider 
grievances,  condemned  the  rebellion,  and  joined  the 
authorities  in  putting  it  down.  In  1787,  the  ad 
mirable  instructions  given  by  the  town  to  its  repre 
sentative  are  a  proud  monument  of  the  good  sense 
and  good  feeling  that  prevailed.  The  grievances 
ceased  with  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  constitution. 
The  constitution  of  Massachusetts  had  been  already 
accepted.  It  was  put  to  the  town  of  Concord,  in 
October,  1776,  by  the  Legislature;  whether  the  exist 
ing  house  of  representatives  should  enact  a  consti 
tution  for  the  State?  The  town  answered  No.1 
The  General  Court,  notwithstanding,  draughted  a 
constitution,  sent  it  here,  and  asked  the  town 
whether  they  would  have  it  for  the  law  of  the 
State?  The  town  answered  No,  by  a  unanimous 
vote.  In  1780,  a  constitution  of  the  State,  proposed 
by  the  Convention  chosen  for  that  purpose,  was  ac 
cepted  by  the  town  with  the  reservation  of  some  ar 
ticles.2  And,  in  1788,  the  town,  by  its  delegate, 
accepted  the  new  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  this  event  closed  the  whole  series  of  important 
public  events  in  which  this  town  played  a  part. 

From  that  time  to  the  present  hour,  this  town 
has  made  a  slow  but  constant  progress  in  popula 
tion  and  wealth,  and  the  arts  of  peace.  It  has  suf 
fered  neither  from  war,  nor  pestilence,  nor  famine, 

1  Kecords,  21st  October.  2  Records,  7th  May. 


AT  CONCORD.  85 

nor  flagrant  crime.  Its  population,  in  the  census 
of  1830,  was  2,020  souls.  The  public  expenses,  for 
the  last  year,  amounted  to  $4,290 ;  for  the  present 
year,  to  $5,040.1  If  the  community  stints  its  ex 
pense  in  small  matters,  it  spends  freely  on  great 
duties.  The  town  raises,  this  year,  $1,800  for  its 
public  schools ;  besides  about  $1,200  which  are 
paid,  by  subscription,  for  private  schools.  This 
year,  it  expends  $800  for  its  poor  ;  the  last  year  it 
expended  $900.  Two  religious  societies,  of  differ 
ing  creed,  dwell  together  in  good  understanding, 
both  promoting,  we  hope,  the  cause  of  righteousness 
and  love.  Concord  has  always  been  noted  for  its 
ministers.  The  living  need  no  praise  of  mine. 
Yet  it  is  among  the  sources  of  satisfaction  and  grat 
itude,  this  day,  that  the  aged  with  whom  is  wisdom, 
our  fathers'  counsellor  and  friend,  is  spared  to 
counsel  and  intercede  for  the  sons. 

Such,  Fellow  Citizens,  is  an  imperfect  sketch  of 
the  history  of  Concord.  I  have  been  greatly  in 
debted,  in  preparing  this  sketch,  to  the  printed  but 
unpublished  History  of  this  town,  furnished  me  by 
the  unhesitating  kindness  of  its  author,  long  a  resi 
dent  in  this  place.  I  hope  that  History  will  not 
long  remain  unknown.  The  author  has  done  us 
and  posterity  a  kindness,  by  the  zeal  and  patience 
of  his  research,  and  has  wisely  enriched  his  pages 
i  Records,  1834  and  1835. 


86  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE 

with,  the  resolutions,  addresses  and  instructions  to 
its  agents,  which  from  time  to  time,  at  critical  pe 
riods,  the  town  has  voted.  Meantime,  I  have  read 
with  care  the  town  records  themselves.  They  must 
ever  be  the  fountains  of  all  just  information  respect 
ing  your  character  and  customs.  They  are  the  his 
tory  of  the  town.  They  exhibit  a  pleasing  picture 
of  a  community  almost  exclusively  agricultural, 
where  no  man  has  much  time  for  words,  in  his 
search  after  things ;  of  a  community  of  great  sim 
plicity  of  manners,  and  of  a  manifest  love  of  justice. 
For  the  most  part,  the  town  has  deserved  the  name 
it  wears.  I  find  our  annals  marked  with  a  uniform 
good  sense.  I  find  no  ridiculous  laws,  no  eaves 
dropping  legislators,  no  hanging  of  witches,  no 
ghosts,  no  whipping  of  Quakers,  no  unnatural 
crimes.  The  tone  of  the  records  rises  with  the  dig 
nity  of  the  event.  These  soiled  and  musty  books 
are  luminous  and  electric  within.  The  old  town 
clerks  did  not  spell  very  correctly,  but  they  contrive 
to  make  pretty  intelligible  the  will  of  a  free  and 
just  community.  Frugal  our  fathers  were,  —  very 
frugal,  —  though,  for  the  most  part,  they  deal  gen 
erously  by  their  minister,  and  provide  well  for  the 
schools  and  the  poor.  If,  at  any  time,  in  common 
with  most  of  our  towns,  they  have  carried  this 
economy  to  the  verge  of  a  vice,  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered  that  a  town  is,  in  many  respects,  a  financial 


AT  CONCORD.  87 

corporation.  They  economize,  that  they  may  sacri 
fice.  They  stint  and  higgle  on  the  price  of  a  pew, 
that  they  may  send  200  soldiers  to  General  Wash 
ington  to  keep  Great  Britain  at  bay.  For  splendor, 
there  must  somewhere  be  rigid  economy.  That  the 
head  of  the  house  may  go  brave,  the  members  must 
be  plainly  clad,  and  the  town  must  save  that  the 
State  may  spend.  Of  late  years,  the  growth  of  Con 
cord  has  been  slow.  Without  navigable  waters, 
without  mineral  riches,  without  any  considerable 
mill  privileges,  the  natural  increase  of  her  popula 
tion  is  drained  by  the  constant  emigration  of  the 
youth.  Her  sons  have  settled  the  region  around  us, 
and  far  from  us.  Their  wagons  have  rattled  down 
the  remote  western  hills.  And  in  every  part  of  this 
country,  and  in  many  foreign  parts,  they  plough  the 
earth,  they  traverse  the  sea,  they  engage  in  trade 
and  in  all  the  professions. 

Fellow  Citizens ;  let  not  the  solemn  shadows  of 
two  hundred  years,  this  day,  fall  over  us  in  vain. 
I  feel  some  unwillingness  to  quit  the  remembrance 
of  the  past.  With  all  the  hope  of  the  new  I  feel 
that  we  are  leaving  the  old.  Every  moment  carries 
us  farther  from  the  two  great^epochs  of  public  prin 
ciple,  the  Planting,  and  the  Revolution  of  the  col 
ony.  Fortunate  and  favored  this  town  has  been,  in 
having  received  so  large  an  infusion  of  the  spirit  of 
both  of  those  periods.  Humble  as  is  our  village  in 


88  HISTORICAL  DISCOURSE. 

the  circle  of  later  and  prouder  towns  that  whiten 
the  land,  it  has  been  consecrated  by  the  presence 
and  activity  of  the  purest  men.  Why  need  I  re 
mind  you  of  our  own  Hosmers,  Minotts,  Cumings, 
Barretts,  Beattons,  the  departed  benefactors  of  the 
town  ?  On  the  village  green  have  been  the  steps 
of  Wlnthrop  and  Dudley ;  of  John  Eliot,  the  In 
dian  apostle,  who  had  a  courage  that  intimidated 
those  savages  whom  his  love  could  not  melt ;  of 
Whitfield,  whose  silver  voice  melted  his  great  con 
gregation  into  tears ;  of  Hancock,  and  his  compat 
riots  of  the  provincial  Congress ;  of  Langdon,  and 
the  college  over  which  he  presided.  But  even  more 
sacred  influences  than  these  have  mingled  here  with 
the  stream  of  human  life.  The  merit  of  those  who 
fill  a  space  in  the  world's  history,  who  are  borne 
forward,  as  it  were,  by  the  weight  of  thousands 
whom  they  lead,  sheds  a  perfume  less  sweet  than  do 
the  sacrifices  of  private  virtue.  I  have  had  much 
opportunity  of  access  to  anecdotes  of  families,  and 
I  believe  this  town  to  have  been  the  dwelling  place, 
in  all  times  since  its  planting,  of  pious  and  excel 
lent  persons,  who  walked  meekly  through  the  paths 
of  common  life,  who  served  God,  and  loved  man, 
and  never  let  go  the  hope  of  immortality.  The 
benediction  of  their  prayers  and  of  their  principles 
lingers  around  us.  The  acknowledgment  of  the 
Supreme  Being  exalts  the  history  of  this  people.  It 


APPENDIX.  89 

brought  the  fathers  hither.  In  a  war  of  principle, 
it  delivered  their  sons.  And  so  long  as  a  spark  of 
this  faith  survives  among  the  children's  children,  so 
long  shall  the  name  of  Concord  be  honest  and  ven 
erable. 


.APPENDIX. 

NOTE  A.  —  SEE  P.  67. 

The  following  minutes  from  the  Town  Records 
in  1692,  may  serve  as  an  example :  — 

John  Craggin,  aged  about  63  years,  and  Sarah 
his  wife,  aet.  about  63  years,  do  both  testify  upon 
©ath,  that,  about  2  years  ago,  John  Shepard,  sen.  of 
Concord,  came  to  our  house  in  Obourne,  to  treat 
with  us,  and  give  us  a  visit,  and  carried  the  said  Sary 
Craggin  to  Concord  with  him,  and  there  discoursed 
us  in  order  to  a  marriage  between  his  son,  John 
Shepard,  Jr.  and  our  daughter,  Eliz.  Craggin,  and, 
for  our  incouragement,  and  before  us,  did  promise, 
that,  upon  the  consummation  of  the  said  marriage, 
he,  the  said  John  Shepard,  sen.  would  give  to  his 
son,  John  Shepard,  jun.  the  one  half  of  his  dwelling 
house,  and  the  old  barn,  and  the  pasture  before  the 
barn  ;  the  old  plow-land,  and  the  old  horse,  when 
his  colt  was  fit  to  ride,  and  his  old  oxen,  when  his 


90  APPENDIX. 

steers  were  fit  to  work.  All  this  he  promised  upon 
marriage  as  above  said,  which  marriage  was  con 
summated  upon  March  following,  which  is  two 
years  ago,  come  next  March,  Dated  Feb.  25,  1692. 
Taken  on  oath  before  me,  Win.  Johnson. 

NOTE  B.  —  SEE  P.  80. 

The  importance  which  the  skirmish  at  Concord 
Bridge  derived  from  subsequent  events,  has,  of  late 
years,  attracted  much  notice  to  the  incidents  of  the 
day.  There  are,  as  might  be  expected,  some  discrep 
ancies  in  the  different  narratives  of  the  fight.  In 
the  brief  summary  in  the  text,  I  have  relied  mainly 
on  the  depositions  taken  by  order  of  the  Provincial 
Congress  within  a  few  days  after  the  action,  and  on 
the  other  contemporary  evidence.  I  have  consulted 
the  English  narrative  in  the  Massachusetts  Histor 
ical  Collections,  and  in  the  trial  of  Home  (Cases 
adjudged  in  King's  Bench;  London,  1800,  vol.  ii.  p. 
677),  the  inscription  made  by  order  of  the  legisla 
ture  of  Massachusetts  on  the  two  field-pieces  pre 
sented  to  the  Concord  Artillery;  Mr.  Phinney's 
History  of  the  Battle  at  Lexington  ;  Dr.  Ripley's 
History  of  Concord  Fight ;  Mr.  Shattuck's  narrative 
in  his  History,  besides  some  oral  and  some  manu 
script  evidence  of  eye-witnesses.  The  following 
narrative,  written  by  Rev.  William  Emerson,  a 
spectator  of  the  action,  has  never  been  published. 


APPENDIX.  91 

A  part  of  it  has  been  in  my  possession  for  years : 
a  part  of  it  I  discovered,  only  a  few  days  since,  in 
a  trunk  of  family  papers  :  — 

1775,  19  April.  This  morning,  between  1  and  2 
o'clock,  we  were  alarmed  by  the  ringing  of  the  bell,  and 
upon  examination  found  that  the  troops,  to  the  number 
of  800,  had  stole  their  march  from  Boston,  in  boats  and 
barges,  from  the  bottom  of  the  Common  over  to  a  point 
in  Cambridge,  near  to  Inman's  Farm,  and  were  at  Lex 
ington  Meeting-house,  half  an  hour  before  sunrise,  where 
they  had  fired  upon  a  body  of  our  men,  and  (as  we  after 
ward  heard,)  had  killed  several.  This  intelligence  was 
brought  us  at  first  by  Dr.  Samuel  Prescott,  who  narrowly 
escaped  the  guard  that  were  sent  before  on  horses,  pur 
posely  to  prevent  all  posts  and  messengers  from  giving  us 
timely  information.  He,  by  the  help  of  a  very  fleet  horse, 
crossing  several  walls  and  fences,  arrived  at  Concord  at 
the  time  above  mentioned  ;  when  several  posts  were  imme 
diately  despatched,  that  returning  confirmed  the  account 
of  the  regulars'  arrival  at  Lexington,  and  that  they  were 
on  their  way  to  Concord.  Upon  this,  a  number  of  our 
minute  men  belonging  to  this  town,  and  Acton,  and  Lyn- 
colii,  with  several  others  that  were  in  readiness,  marched 
out  to  meet  them ;  while  the  alarm  company  were  pre 
paring  to  receive  them  in  the  town.  Capt.  Minot,  who 
commanded  them,  thought  it  proper  to  take  possession  of 
the  hill  above  the  meeting-house,  as  the  most  advanta 
geous  situation.  No  sooner  had  our  men  gained  it,  than 
we  were  met  by  the  companies  that  were  sent  out  to  meet 


92  APPENDIX. 

the  troops,  who  informed  us,  that  they  were  just  upon 
us,  and  that  we  must  retreat,  as  their  number  was  more 
than  treble  ours.  "We  then  retreated  from  the  hill  near 
the  Liberty  Pole,  and  took  a  new  post  back  of  the  town 
upon  an  eminence,  where  we  formed  into  two  battalions, 
and  waited  the  arrival  of  the  enemy.  Scarcely  had  we 
formed,  before  we  saw  the  British  troops  at  the  distance 
of  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  glittering  in  arms,  advancing  to 
wards  us  with  the  greatest  celerity.  Some  were  for 
making  a  stand,  notwithstanding  the  superiority  of  their 
number  ;  but  others  more  prudent  thought  best  to  retreat 
till  our  strength  should  be  equal  to  the  enemy's  by  re 
cruits  from  neighboring  towns  that  were  continually 
coming  in  to  our  assistance.  Accordingly  we  retreated 
over  the  bridge,  when  the  troops  came  into  the  town,  set 
fire  to  several  carriages  for  the  artillery,  destroyed  60 
bbls.  flour,  rifled  several  houses,  took  possession  of  the 
town-house,  destroyed  500  Ib.  of  balls,  set  a  guard  of  100 
men  at  the  North  Bridge,  and  sent  up  a  party  to  the 
house  of  Col.  Barrett,  where  they  were  in  expectation  of 
finding  a  quantity  of  warlike  stores.  But  these  were 
happily  secured  just  before  their  arrival,  by  transporta 
tion  into  the  woods  and  other  by-places.  In  the  mean 
time,  the  guard  set  by  the  enemy  to  secure  the  pass  at 
the  North  Bridge  were  alarmed  by  the  approach  of  our 
people,  who  had  retreated,  as  mentioned  before,  and 
were  now  advancing  with  special  orders  not  to  fire  upon 
the  troops  unless  fired  upon.  These  orders  were  so 
punctually  observed  that  we  received  the  fire  of  the 
enemy  in  three  several  and  separate  discharges  of  their 


APPENDIX.  93 

pieces  before  it  was  returned  by  our  commanding  officer ; 
the  firing  then  soon  become  general  for  several  minutes, 
in  which  skirmish  two  were  killed  on  each  side,  and  sev 
eral  of  the  enemy  wounded.  It  may  here  be  observed, 
by  the  way,  that  we  were  the  more  cautious  to  prevent 
beginning  a  rupture  with  the  King's  troops,  as  we  were 
then  uncertain  what  had  happened  at  Lexington,  and 
knew  [not]  l  that  they  had  began  the  quarrel  there  by 
first  firing  upon  our  people,  and  killing  eight  men  upon 
the  spot.  The  three  companies  of  troops  soon  quitted 
their  post  at  the  bridge,  and  retreated  in  the  greatest 
disorder  and  confusion  to  the  main  body,  who  were  soon 
upon  the  march  to  meet  them.  For  half  an  hour,  the 
enemy,  by  their  marches  and  counter-marches,  discovered 
great  fickleness  and  inconstancy  of  mind,  sometimes  ad 
vancing,  sometimes  returning  to  their  former  posts  ;  till, 
at  length  they  quitted  the  town,  and  retreated  by  the 
way  they  came.  In  the  meantime,  a  party  of  our  men 
(150)  took  the  back  way  through  the  Great  Fields  into 
the  east  quarter,  and  had  placed  themselves  to  advan 
tage,  lying  in  ambush  behind  walls,  fences  and  build 
ings,  ready  to  fire  upon  the  enemy  on  their  retreat. 

The  following  notice  of  the  Centennial  Celebra 
tion  lias  been  drawn  up  and  sent  us  by  a  friend 
who  thought  it  desirable  to  preserve  the  remem 
brance  of  some  particulars  of  this  historical  festi 
val. 

1  The  context  and  the  testimony  of  some  of  the  surviving 
veterans  incline  me  to  think  that  this  word  was  accidentally 
omitted.  R.  W.  E. 


94  APPENDIX. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  town  of  Concord,  in  April 
last,  it  was  voted  to  celebrate  the  Second  Centen 
nial  Anniversary  of  the  settlement  of  the  town,  on 
the  12th  September  following.  A  committee  of 
fifteen  were  chosen  to  make  the  arrangements. 
This  committee  appointed  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
Orator,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Ripley  and  Rev.  Mr.  Wilder, 
Chaplains  of  the  Day.  Hon.  John  Keyes  was 
chosen  President  of  the  Day. 

On  the  morning  of  the  12th  September,  at  half 
past  10  o'clock,  the  children  of  the  town,  to  the 
number  of  about  500,  moved  in  procession  to  the 
common  in  front  of  the  old  church  and  Court-house, 
and  there  opened  to  the  right  and  left,  awaiting 
the  procession  of  citizens.  At  11  o'clock,  the  Con 
cord  Light  Infantry,  under  Capt.  Moore,  and  the 
Artillery  under  Capt.  Buttrick,  escorted  the  civic 
procession,  under  the  direction  of  Moses  Prichard 
as  Chief  Marshall,  from  Shepherd's  hotel,  through 
the  lines  of  children  to  the  Meeting-house.  The 
South  gallery  had  been  reserved  for  ladies,  and  the 
North  gallery  for  the  children ;  but  (it  was  a  good 
omen)  the  children  overran  the  space  assigned  for 
their  accommodation,  and  were  sprinkled  through 
out  the  house,  and  ranged  on  seats  along  the  aisles. 
The  old  Meeting-house,  which  was  propped  to  sus 
tain  the  unwonted  weight  of  the  multitude  within 
its  walls,  was  built  in  1712,  thus  having  stood  for 


APPENDIX.  95 

more  than  half  the  period  to  which  our  history  goes 
back.  Prayers  were  offered  and  the  Scriptures 
read  by  the  aged  minister  of  the  town,  Rev.  Ezra 
Eipley,  now  in  the  85th  year  of  his  age ;  —  another 
interesting  feature  in  this  scene  of  reminiscences. 
A  very  pleasant  and  impressive  part  of  the  services 
in  the  church  was  the  singing  of  the  107th  psalm, 
from  the  New  England  version  of  the  psalms  made 
by  Eliot,  Mather,  and  others,  in  1639,  and  used  in 
the  church  in  this  town  in  the  days  of  Peter  Bulke- 
ley.  The  psalm  was  read  a  line  at  a  time,  after 
the  ancient  fashion,  from  the  Deacons'  seat,  and  so 
sung  to  the  tune  of  St.  Martin's  by  the  whole  con 
gregation  standing. 

Ten  of  the  surviving  veterans  who  were  in  arms 
at  the  Bridge,  on  the  19  April,  1775,  honored  the 
festival  with  their  presence.  Their  names  are  Abel 
Davis,  Thaddeus  Blood,  Tilly  Buttrick,  John  Hos~ 
mer,  of  Concord  ;  Thomas  Thorp,  Solomon  Smith, 
John  Oliver,  Aaron  Jones,  of  Acton  ;  David  Lane, 
of  Bedford  ;  Amos  Baker,  of  Lincoln. 

On  leaving  the  church,  the  procession  again 
formed,  and  moved  to  a  large  tent  nearly  opposite 
Shepherd's  hotel,  under  which  dinner  was  prepared, 
and  the  company  sat  down  to  the  tables,  to  the 
number  of  four  hundred.  We  were  honored  with 
the  presence  of  distinguished  guests,  among  whom 
were  Lieut.  Gov.  Armstrong,  Judge  Davis,  Alden 


96  APPENDIX. 

Bradford  (descended  from  the  2d  governor  of  Plym 
outh  Colony),  Hon.  Edward  Everett,  Hon.  Ste 
phen  C.  Phillips  of  Salem,  Philip  Hone,  Esq.  of 
New  York,  Gen.  Dearborn,  and  Lt.  Col.  K.  C.  Win- 
throp,  (descended  from  the  1st  Governor  of  Massa 
chusetts.)  Letters  were  read  from  several  gentle 
men  expressing  their  regret  at  being  deprived  of 
the  pleasure  of  being  present  on  the  occasion.  The 
character  of  the  speeches  and  sentiments  at  the 
dinner  was  manly  and  affectionate,  in  keeping  with 
the  whole  temper  of  the  day. 

On  leaving  the  dinner  table,  the  invited  guests, 
with  many  of  the  citizens,  repaired  to  the  Court 
house  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  ladies  of  Con 
cord,  who  had  there,  with  their  friends,  partaken  of 
an  elegant  collation,  and  now  politely  offered  coffee 
to  the  gentlemen.  The  hall,  in  which  the  collation 
was  spread,  had  been  decorated  by  fair  hands  with 
festoons  of  flowers,  and  wreaths  of  evergreen,  and 
hung  with  pictures  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Town. 
Crowded  as  it  was  with  graceful  forms  and  happy 
faces,  and  resounding  with  the  hum  of  animated 
conversation,  it  was  itself  a  beautiful  living  picture. 
Compared  with  the  poverty  and  savageness  of  the 
scene  which  the  same  spot  presented  two  hundred 
years  ago,  it  was  a  brilliant  reverse  of  the  medal ; 
and  could  scarcely  fail,  like  all  the  parts  of  the 
holiday,  to  lead  the  reflecting  mind  to  thoughts  of 


APPENDIX.  97 

that  Divine  Providence,  which,  in  every  generation, 
has  been  our  tower  of  defence  and  horn  of  blessing. 
At  sunset  the  company  separated  and  retired  to 
their  homes ;  and  the  evening  of  this  day  of  excite 
ment  was  as  quiet  as  a  Sabbath  throughout  the 
village. 

VOL.  XI.  7 


ADDRESS 


AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT  IN  CONCORD, 
APRIL  19TH,  1867. 


ADDRESS. /j-g] 
1  xtf.< 

FELLOW  CITIZENS  : 

The  day  is  in  Concord  doubly  our  calendar  day, 
as  being  the  anniversary  of  the  invasion  of  the 
town  by  the  British  troops  in  1775,  and  of  the  de 
parture  of  the  company  of  volunteers  for  Washing 
ton,  in  1861.  We  are  all  pretty  well  aware  that 
the  facts  wrhich  make  to  us  the  interest  of  this  day 
are  in  a  great  degree  personal  and  local  here  ;  that 
every  other  town  and  city  has  its  own  heroes  and 
memorial  days,  and  that  we  can  hardly  expect  a 
wide  sympathy  for  the  names  and  anecdotes  which 
we  delight  to  record.  We  are  glad  and  proud  that 
we  have  no  monopoly  of  merit.  We  are  thankful 
that  Other  towns  and  cities  are  as  rich ;  that  the 
heroes  of  old  and  of  recent  date,  who  made  and 
kept  America  free  and  united,  were  not  rare  or  sol 
itary  growths,  but  sporadic  over  vast  tracts  of  the 
Republic.  Yet,  as  it  is  a  piece  of  nature  and  the 
common  sense  that  the  throbbing  chord  that  holds 
us  to  our  kindred,  our  friends  and  our  town,  is  not 
to  be  denied  or  resisted,  —  no  matter  how  frivolous 


102  ADDRESS. 

or  unphilosophical  its  pulses,  —  we  shall  cling  af 
fectionately  to  our  houses,  our  river  and  pastures, 
and  believe  that  our  visitors  will  pardon  us  if  we 
take  the  privilege  of  talking  freely  about  our  near 
est  neighbors  as  in  a  family  party ;  —  well  assured, 
meantime,  that  the  virtues  we  are  met  to  honor 
were  directed  on  aims  which  command  the  sympa 
thy  of  every  loyal  American  citizen,  were  exerted 
for  the  protection  of  our  common  country,  and 
aided  its  triumph. 

The  town  has  thought  fit  to  signify  its  honor  for 
a  few  of  its  sons  by  raising  an  obelisk  in  the  square. 
It  is  a  simple  pile  enough,  —  a  few  slabs  of  granite, 
dug  just  below  the  surface  of  the  soil,  and  laid  upon 
the  top  of  it ;  but  as  we  have  learned  that  the  up 
heaved  mountain,  from  which  these  discs  or  flakes 
were  broken,  was  once  a  glowing  mass  at  white 
heat,  slowly  crystallized,  then  uplifted  by  the  cen 
tral  fires  of  the  globe :  so  the  roots  of  the  events  it 
appropriately  marks  are  in  the  heart  of  the  uni 
verse.  I  shall  say  of  this  obelisk,  planted  here  in 
our  quiet  plains,  what  Richter  says  of  the  volcano 
in  the  fair  landscape  of  Naples  :  "  Vesuvius  stands 
in  this  poem  of  Nature,  and  exalts  everything,  as 
war  does  the  age." 

The  art  of  the  architect  and  the  sense  of  the 
town  have  made  these  dumb  stones  speak ;  have,  if 
I  may  borrow  the  old  language  of  the  church,  con- 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,  CONCORD.        103 

verted  these  elements  from  a  secular  to  a  sacred 
and  spiritual  use  ;  have  made  them  look  to  the  pas t 
and  the  future  ;  have  given  them  a  meaning  for  the 
imagination  and  the  heart.  The  sense  of  the  town, 
the  eloquent  inscriptions  the  shaft  now  bears,  the 
memories  of  these  martyrs,  the  noble  names  which 
yet  have  gathered  only  their  first  fame,  whatever 
good  grows  to  the  country  out  of  the  war,  the  lar 
gest  results,  the  future  power  and  genius  of  the  land, 
will  go  on  clothing  this  shaft  with  daily  beauty 
and  spiritual  life.  'T  is  certain  that  a  plain  stone 
like  this,  standing  on  such  memories,  having  no  ref 
erence  to  utilities,  but  only  to  the  grand  instincts 
of  the  civil  and  moral  man,  mixes  with  surrounding 
nature,  —  by  day,  with  the  changing  seasons,  by 
night  the  stars  roll  over  it  gladly,  —  becomes  a 
sentiment,  a  poet,  a  prophet,  an  orator,  to  every 
townsman  and  passenger,  an  altar  where  the  noble 
youth  shall  in  all  time  come  to  make  his  secret 
vows. 

The  old  Monument,  a  short  half-mile  from  this 
house,  stands  to  signalize  the  first  Eevolu'tion, 
where  the  people  resisted  offensive  usurpations,  of 
fensive  taxes  of  the  British  Parliament,  claiming 
that  there  should  be  no  tax  without  representation. 
Instructed  by  events,  after  the  quarrel  began,  the 
Americans  took  higher  ground,  and  stood  for  po 
litical  independence.  But  in  the  necessities  of  the 


104  ADDRESS. 

hour,  they  overlooked  the  moral  law,  and  winked 
at  a  practical  exception  to  the  Bill  of  Rights  they 
had  drawn  up.  They  winked  at  the  exception,  be 
lieving  it  insignificant.  But  the  moral  law,  the 
nature  of  things,  did  not  wink  at  it,  but  kept  its 
eye  wide  open.  It  turned  out  that  this  one  viola 
tion  was  a  subtle  poison,  which  in  eighty  years 
corrupted  the  whole  overgrown  body  politic,  and 
brought  the  alternative  of  extirpation  of  the  poison 
or  ruin  to  the  Republic. 

This  new  Monument  is  built  to  mark  the  arrival 
of  the  nation  at  the  new  principle,  —  say,  rather, 
at  its  new  acknowledgment,  for  the  principle  is  as 
old  as  Heaven,  —  that  only  that  State  can  live,  in 
which  injury  to  the  least  member  is  recognized  as 
damage  to  the  whole. 

Reform  must  begin  at  home.  The  aim  of  the 
hour  was  to  reconstruct  the  South  ;  but  first  the 
North  had  to  be  reconstructed.  Its  own  theory 
and  practice  of  liberty  had  got  sadly  out  of  gear, 
and  must  be  corrected.  It  was  done  on  the  instant. 
A  thunder-storm  at  sea  sometimes  reverses  the  mag 
nets  in  the  ship,  and  south  is  north.  The  storm  of 
war  works  the  like  miracle  on  men.  Every  demo 
crat  who  went  South  came  back  a  republican,  like 
the  governors  who,  in  Buchanan's  time,  went  to 
Kansas,  and  instantly  took  the  free-state  colors. 
War,  says  the  poet,  is 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,  CONCORD.        105 

"  the  arduous  strife, 
To  which  the  triumph  of  all  good  is  given." 

Every  principle  is  a  war-note.  When  the  rights  of 
man  are  recited  under  any  old  government,  every 
one  of  them  is  a  declaration  of  war.  War  civilizes, 
re-arranges  the  population,  distributing  by  ideas, — 
the  innovators  on  one  side,  the  antiquaries  on  the 
other.  It  opens  the  eyes  wider.  Once  we  were 
patriots  up  to  the  town-bounds,  or  the  State-line. 
But  when  you  replace  the  love  of  family  or  clan  by 
a  principle,  as  freedom,  instantly  that  fire  runs  over 
the  State-line  into  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  New 
York  and  Ohio,  into  the  prairie  and  beyond,  leaps 
the  mountains,  bridges  river  and  lake,  burns  as 
hotly  in  Kansas  and  California  as  in  Boston,  and 
no  chemist  can  discriminate  between  one  soil  and 
the  other.  It  lifts  every  population  to  an  equal 
power  and  merit. 

As  long  as  we  debate  in  council,  both  sides  may 
form  their  private  guess  what  the  event  may  be,  or 
which  is  the  strongest.  But  the  moment  you  cry 
"  Every  man  to  his  tent,  O  Israel !  "  the  delusions 
of  hope  and  fear  are  at  an  end ;  —  the  strength  is 
now  to  be  tested  by  the  eternal  facts.  There  will 
be  no  doubt  more.  The  world  is  equal  to  itself. 
The  secret  architecture  of  things  begins  to  disclose 
itself  ;  the  fact  that  all  things  were  made  on  a  ba 
sis  of  right ;  that  justice  is  really  desired  by  all  in- 


106  ADDRESS. 

telligent  beings ;  that  opposition  to  it  is  against  the 
nature  of  things ;  and  that,  whatever  may  happen 
in  this  hour  or  that,  the  years  and  the  centuries  are 
always  pulling  down  the  wrong  and  building  up 
the  right. 

The  war  made  the  Divine  Providence  credible  to 
many  who  did  not  believe  the  good  Heaven  quite 
honest.  Every  man  was  an  abolitionist  by  convic 
tion,  but  did  not  believe  that  his  neighbor  was. 
The  opinions  of  masses  of  men,  which  the  tactics  of 
primary  caucuses  and  the  proverbial  timidity  of 
trade  had  concealed,  the  war  discovered  ;  and  it 
was  found,  contrary  to  all  popular  belief,  that  the 
country  was  at  heart  abolitionist,  and  for  the  Union 
was  ready  to  die. 

As  cities  of  men  are  the  first  effects  of  civiliza 
tion,  and  also  instantly  causes  of  more  civilization, 
so  armies,  which  are  only  wandering  cities,  gener 
ate  a  vast  heat,  and  lift  the  spirit  of  the  soldiers, 
who  compose  them  to  the  boiling  point.  The  ar 
mies  mustered  in  the  North  were  as  much  mis 
sionaries  to  the  mind  of  the  country  as  they  were 
carriers  of  material  force,  and  had  the  vast  advan 
tage  of  carrying  whither  they  marched  a  higher 
civilization.  Of  course,  there  are  noble  men  every 
where,  and  there  are  such  in  the  South  ;  and  the 
noble  know  the  noble,  wherever  they  meet  ;  and 
we  have  all  heard  passages  of  generous  and  excep- 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,  CONCORD.        107 

tional  behavior  exhibited  by  individuals  there  to 
our  officers  and  men,  during  the  war.  But  the 
common  people,  rich  or  poor,  were  the  narrowest 
and  most  conceited  of  mankind,  as  arrogant  as  the 
negroes  on  the  Gambia  River ;  and,  by  the  way,  it 
looks  as  if  the  editors  of  the  Southern  press  were 
in  all  times  selected  from  this  class.  The  invasion 
of  Northern  farmers,  mechanics,  engineers,  trades 
men,  lawyers  and  students  did  more  than  forty 
years  of  peace  had  done  to  educate  the  South. 
"This  will  be  a  slow  business,"  writes  our  Con 
cord  captain  home,  "  for  we  have  to  stop  and  civil 
ize  the  people  as  we  go  along." 

It  is  an  interesting  part  of  the  history,  the  man 
ner  in  which  tjiis  incongruous  militia  were  made 
soldiers.  That  was  done  again  on  the  Kansas  plan. 
Our  farmers  went  to  Kansas  as  peaceable,  God 
fearing  men  as  the  members  of  our  school-commit 
tee  here.  But  when  the  Border  raids  were  let 
loose  on  their  villages,  these  people,  who  turned 
pale  at  home  if  called  to  dress  a  cut  finger,  on  wit 
nessing  the  butchery  done  by  the  Missouri  riders 
on  women  and  babes,  were  so  beside  themselves 
with  rage,  that  they  became  on  the  instant  the 
bravest  soldiers  and  the  most  determined  avengers. 
And  the  first  events  of  the  war  of  the  Rebellion 
gave  the  like  training  to  the  new  recruits. 

All  sorts  of  men  went  to  the  war,  —  the  roughs, 


108  ADDRESS. 

men  who  liked  harsh  play  and  violence,  men  for 
whom  pleasure  was  not  strong  enough,  but  who 
wanted  pain,  and  found  sphere  at  last  for  their 
superabundant  energy ;  then  the  adventurous  type 
of  New  Englander,  with  his  appetite  for  novelty 
and  travel ;  the  village  politician,  who  could  now 
verify  his  newspaper  knowledge,  see  the  South,  and 
amass  what  a  stock  of  adventures  to  retail  hereafter 
at  the  fireside,  or  to  the  well-known  companions  on 
the  Mill-dam  ;  young  men,  also,  of  excellent  educa 
tion  and  polished  manners,  delicately  brought  up  ; 
manly  farmers,  skilful  mechanics,  young  tradesmen, 
men  hitherto  of  narrow  opportunities  of  knowing 
the  world,  but  well  taught  in  the  grammar-schools. 
But  perhaps  in  every  one  of  these  classes  were  ideal 
ists,  men  who  went  from  a  religious  duty.  I  have 
a  note  of  a  conversation  that  occurred  in  our  first 
company,  the  morning  before  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run.  At  a  halt  in  the  march,  a  few  of  our  boys 
were  sitting  on  a  rail  fence  talking  together  whether 
it  was  right  to  sacrifice  themselves.  One  of  them 
said,  "  he  had  been  thinking  a  good  deal  about  it, 
last  night,  and  he  thought  one  was  never  too  young 
to  die  for  a  principle."  One  of  our  later  volun 
teers,  on  the  day  when  he  left  home,  in  reply  to  my 
question,  How  can  you  be  spared  from  your  farm, 
now  that  your  father  is  so  ill?  said:  "I  go  because 
I  shall  always  be  sorry  if  I  did  not  go  when  the 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,  CONCORD.        109 

country  called  me.  I  can  go  as  well  as  another." 
One  wrote  to  his  father  these  words :  —  "  You  may 
think  it  strange  that  I,  who  have  always  naturally 
rather  shrunk  from  danger,  should  wish  to  enter 
the  army ;  but  there  is  a  higher  Power  that  tunes 
the  hearts  of  men,  and  enables  them  to  see  their 
duty,  and  gives  them  courage  to  face  the  dangers 
with  which  those  duties  are  attended."  And  the 
captain  writes  home  of  another  of  his  men,  — 

"  B comes  from  a  sense  of  duty  and  love  of 

country,  and  these  are  the  soldiers  you  can  depend 
upon." 

None  of  us  can  have  forgotten  how  sharp  a  test 
to  try  our  peaceful  people  with,  was  the  first  call 
for  troops.  I  doubt  not  many  of  our  soldiers  could 
repeat  the  confession  of  a  youth  whom  I  knew 
in  the  beginning  of  the  war,  who  enlisted  in  New 
York,  went  to  the  field,  and  died  early.  Before  his 
departure  he  confided  to  his  sister  that  he  was  nat 
urally  a  coward,  but  was  determined  that  no  one 
should  ever  find  it  out ;  that  he  had  long  trained 
himself  by  forcing  himself,  on  the  suspicion  of  any 
near  danger,  to  go  directly  up  to  it,  cost  him  what 
struggles  it  might.  Yet  it  is  from  this  tempera 
ment  of  sensibility  that  great  heroes  have  been 
formed. 

Our  first  company  was  led  by  an  officer  wrho  had 
grown  up  in  this  village  from  a  boy.  The  older 


110  ADDRESS. 

among  us  can  well  remember  him  at  school,  at  play 
and  at  work,  all  the  way  up,  the  most  amiable,  sen 
sible,  unpretending  of  men  ;  fair,  blonde,  the  rose 
lived  long  in  his  cheek  ;  grave,  but  social,  and  one 
of  the  last  men  in  this  town  you  would  have  picked 
out  for  the  rough  dealing  of  war,  —  not  a  trace  of 
fierceness,  much  less  of  recklessness,  or  of  the  de 
vouring  thirst  for  excitement ;  tender  as  a  woman 
in  his  care  for  a  cough  or  a  chilblain  in  his  men ; 
had  troches  and  arnica  in  his  pocket  for  them.  The 
army  officers  were  welcome  to  their  jest  on  him  as 
too  kind  for  a  captain,  and,  later,  as  the  colonel  who 
got  off  his  horse  when  he  saw  one  of  his  men  limp 
on  the  march,  and  told  him  to  ride.  But  he  knew 
that  his  men  had  found  out,  first  that  he  was  cap 
tain,  then  that  he  was  colonel,  and  neither  dared  nor 
wished  to  disobey  him.  He  was  a  man  without 
conceit,  who  never  fancied  himself  a  philosopher  or 
a  saint ;  the  most  modest  and  amiable  of  men,  en 
gaged  in  common  duties,  but  equal  always  to  the 
occasion  ;  and  the  war  showed  him  still  equal,  how 
ever  stern  and  terrible  the  occasion  grew,  —  dis 
closed  in  him  a  strong  good  sense,  great  fertility  of 
resource,  the  helping  hand,  and  then  the  moral 
qualities  of  a  commander,  —  a  patience  not  to  be 
tired  out,  a  serious  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the 
country  that  never  swerved,  a  hope  that  never 
failed.  He  was  a  Puritan  in  the  army,  with  traits 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,   CONCORD.        Ill 

that  remind  one  of  John  Brown,  —  an  integrity  in 
corruptible,  and  an  ability  that  always  rose  to  the 
need. 

You  will  remember  that  these  colonels,  captains 
and  lieutenants,  and  the  privates  too,  are  domestic 
men,  just  wrenched  away  from  their  families  and 
their  business  by  this  rally  of  all  the  manhood  in 
the  land.  They  have  notes  to  pay  at  home  ;  have 
farms,  shops,  factories,  affairs  of  every  kind  to 
think  of  and  write  home  about.  Consider  what 
sacrifice  and  havoc  in  business  arrangements  this 
war-blast  made.  They  have  to  think  carefully  of 
every  last  resource  at  home  on  which  their  wives 
or  mothers  may  fall  back  ;  upon  the  little  account 
in  the  savings-bank,  the  grass  that  can  be  sold,  the 
old  cow,  or  the  heifer.  These  necessities  make  the 
topics  of  the  ten  thousand  letters  with  which  the 
mail-bags  came  loaded  day  by  day.  These  letters 
play  a  great  part  in  the  war.  The  writing  of  letters 
made  the  Sunday  in  every  camp :  —  meantime  they 
are  without  the  means  of  writing.  After  the  first 
marches  there  is  no  letter-paper,  there  are  no  envel 
opes,  no  postage-stamps,  for  these  were  wetted  into 
a  solid  mass  in  the  rains  and  mud.  Some  of  these 
letters  are  written  on  the  back  of  old  bills,  some  on 
brown  paper,  or  strips  of  newspaper;  written  by 
firelight,  making  the  short  night  shorter ;  written 
on  the  knee,  in  the  mud,  with  pencil,  six  words  at 


112  ADDRESS. 

a  time  ;  or  in  the  saddle,  and  have  to  stop  because 
the  horse  will  not  stand  still.  But  the  words  are 
proud  and  tender,  —  "  Tell  mother  I  will  not  dis 
grace  her  ;  "  "  tell  her  not  to  worry  about  me,  for 
I  know  she  would  not  have  had  me  stay  at  home  if 
she  could  as  well  as  not."  The  letters  of  the  cap 
tain  are  the  dearest  treasures  of  this  town.  Always 
devoted,  sometimes  anxious,  sometimes  full  of  joy 
at  the  deportment  of  his  comrades,  they  contain  the 
sincere  praise  of  men  whom  I  now  see  in  this  as 
sembly.  If  Marshal  Montluc's  Memoirs  are  the 
Bible  of  soldiers,  as  Henry  IV.  of  France  said,  Col 
onel  Prescott  might  furnish  the  Book  of  Epistles. 

He  writes,  "  You  don't  know  how  one  gets  at 
tached  to  a  company  by  living  with  them  and  sleep 
ing  with  them  all  the  time.  I  know  every  man 
by  heart.  I  know  every  man's  weak  spot,  —  who 
is  shaky,  and  who  is  true  blue."  He  never  remits 
his  care  of  the  men,  aiming  to  hold  them  to  their 
good  habits  and  to  keep  them  cheerful.  For  the 
first  point,  he  keeps  up  a  constant  acquaintance 
with  them ;  urges  their  correspondence  with  their 
friends ;  writes  news  of  them  home,  urging  his 
own  correspondent  to  visit  their  families  and  keep 
them  informed  about  the  men ;  encourages  a  tem 
perance  society  which  is  formed  in  the  camp.  "  I 
have  not  had  a  man  drunk,  or  affected  by  liquor, 
since  we  came  here."  At  one  time  he  finds  his 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,   CONCORD.        113 

company  unfortunate  in  having  fallen  between  two 
companies  of  quite  another  class,  —  "  't  is  profanity 
all  the  time  :  yet  instead  of  a  bad  influence  on  our 
men,  I  think  it  works  the  other  way,  —  it  disgusts 
them." 

One  day  he  writes  :  "  I  expect  to  have  a  time, 
this  forenoon,  with  the  officer  from  West  Point  who 
drills  us.  He  is*  very  profane,  and  I  will  not  stand 
it.  If  he  does  not  stop  it,  I  shall  march  my  men 
right  away  when  he  is  drilling  them.  There  is  a 
fine  for  officers  swearing  in  the  army,  and  I  have 
too  many  young  men  that  are  not  used  to  such  talk. 
I  told  the  colonel  this  morning  I  should  do  it,  and 
shall,  —  don't  care  what  the  consequence  is.  This 
lieutenant  seems  to  think  that  these  men  who  never 
saw  a  gun,  can  drill  as  well  as  he,  who  has  been  at 
West  Point  four  years."  At  night  he  adds  :  "I 
told  that  officer  from  West  Point,  this  morning, 
that  he  could  not  swear  at  my  company  as  he  did 
yesterday ;  told  him  I  would  not  stand  it  any  way. 
I  told  him  I  had  a  good  many  young  men  in  my 
company  whose  mothers  asked  me  to  look  after 
them,  and  I  should  do  so,  and  not  allow  them  to 
hear  such  language,  especially  from  an  officer, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  set  them  a  better  example. 
Told  him  I  did  not  swear  myself  and  would  not 
allow  him  to.  He  looked  at  me  as  much  as  to  say, 
Do  you  know  whom  you  are  talking  to  ?  and  I 


VOL.    XI. 


114  ADDRESS. 

looked  at  him  as  much  as  to  say,  Yes,  I  do.  He 
looked  rather  ashamed,  but  went  through  the  drill 
without  an  oath."  So  much  for  the  care  of  their 
morals.  His  next  point  is  to  keep  them  cheerful. 
'T  is  better  than  medicine.  He  has  games  of  base 
ball,  and  pitching  quoits,  and  euchre,  whilst  part  of 
the  military  discipline  is  sham-fights. 

The  best  men  heartily  second  him,  and  invent 
excellent  means  of  their  own.  When,  afterwards, 
five  of  these  men  were  prisoners  in  the  Parish 
Prison  in  New  Orleans,  they  set  themselves  to  use 
the  time  to  the  wisest  advantage,  —  formed  a  de 
bating  club,  wrote  a  daily 'or  weekly  newspaper, 
called  it  "  Stars  and  Stripes."  It  advertises, 
"prayer  meeting  at  7  o'clock,  in  cell  No.  8,  second 
floor,"  and  their  own  printed  record  is  a  proud  and 
affecting  narrative. 

Whilst  the  regiment  was  encamped  at  Camp  An 
drew,  near  Alexandria,  in  June,  1861,  marching 
orders  came.  Colonel  Lawrence  sent  for  eight 
wagons,  but  only  three  came.  On  these  they  loaded 
all  the  canvas  of  the  tents,  but  took  no  tent-poles. 

"It  looked  very  much  like  a  severe  thunder 
storm,"  writes  the  captain,  "  and  I  knew  the  men 
would  all  have  to  sleep  out  of  doors,  unless  we  car 
ried  them.  So  I  took  six  poles,  and  went  to  the 
colonel,  and  told  him  I  had  got  the  poles  for  two 
tents,  which  would  cover  twenty-four  men,  and  tm- 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,  CONCORD.        115 

less  he  ordered  me  not  to  carry  them,  I  should  do 
so.  He  said  he  had  no  objection,  only  thought  they 
would  be  too  much  for  me.  We  only  had  about 
twelve  men  "  (the  rest  of  the  company  being,  per 
haps,  on  picket  or  other  duty),  "and  some  of  them 
have  their  heavy  knapsacks  and  guns  to  carry,  so 
could  not  carry  any  poles.  We  started  and  marched 
two  miles  without  stopping  to  rest,  not  having  had 
anything  to  eat,  and  being  very  hot  and  dry."  At 
this  time  Captain  Prescott  was  daily  threatened 
with  sickness,  and  suffered  the  more  from  this  heat. 
"  I  told  Lieutenant  Bowers,  this  morning,  that  I 
could  afford  to  be  sick  from  bringing  the  tent-poles, 
for  it  saved  the  whole  regiment  from  sleeping  out 
doors  ;  for  they  would  not  have  thought  of  it,  if  I 
had  not  taken  mine.  The  major  had  tried  to  dis 
courage  me  ;  —  said,  '  perhaps,  if  I  carried  them 
over,  some  other  company  would  get  them  ; '  —  I 
told  him,  perhaps  he  did  not  think  I  was  smart." 
He  had  the  satisfaction  to  see  the  whole  regiment 
enjoying  the  protection  of  these  tents.  • 

In  the  disastrous  battle  of  Bull  Kun  this  com 
pany  behaved  well,  and  the  regimental  officers  be 
lieved,  what  is  now  the  general  conviction  of  the 
country,  that  the  misfortunes  of  the  day  were  not 
so  much  owing  to  the  fault  of  the  troops,  as  to  the 
insufficiency  of  the  combinations  by  the  general 
officers.  It  happened,  also,  that  the  Fifth  Massa- 


116  ADDRESS. 

chusetts  was  almost  imofficered.  The  colonel  was, 
early  in  the  day,  disabled  by  a  casualty  ;  the  lieu 
tenant-colonel,  the  major  and  the  adjutant  were 
already  transferred  to  new  regiments,  and  their 
places  were  not  yet  filled.  The  three  months  of 
the  enlistment  expired  a  few  days  after  the  battle. 

In  the  fall  of  1861,  the  old  Artillery  company  of 
this  town  was  reorganized,  and  Captain  Kichard 
Barrett  received  a  commission  in  March,  1862, 
from  the  State,  as  its  commander.  This  company, 
chiefly  recruited  here,  was  later  embodied  in  the 
Forty-seventh  Regiment,  Massachusetts  Volunteers, 
enlisted  as  nine  months'  men,  and  sent  to  New  Or 
leans,  where  they  were  employed  in  guard  duty 
during  their  term  of  service.  Captain  Humphrey 
H.  Buttrick,  lieutenant  in  this  regiment,  as  he  had 
been  already  lieutenant  in  Captain  Prescott's  com 
pany  in  1861,  went  out  again  in  August,  1864,  a 
captain  in  the  Fifty-ninth  Massachusetts,  and  saw 
hard  service  in  the  Ninth  Corps,  under  General 
Burnside.  The  regiment  being  formed  of  veterans, 
and  in  fields  requiring  great  activity  and  exposure, 
suffered  extraordinary  losses ;  Captain  Buttrick 
and  one  other  officer  being  the  only  officers  in  it 
who  were  neither  killed,  wounded,  nor  captured. 
In  August,  1862,  on  the  new  requisition  for  troops, 
when  it  was  becoming  difficult  to  meet  the  draft,  — 
mainly  through  the  personal  example  and  influence 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,  CONCORD.        117 

of  Mr.  Sylvester  Lovejoy,  twelve  men,  including 
himself,  were  enlisted  for  three  years,  and,  being 
soon  after  enrolled  in  the  Fortieth  Massachusetts, 
went  to  the  war ;  and  a  very  good  account  has  been 
heard,  not  only  of  the  regiment,  but  of  the  talents 
and  virtues  of  these  men. 

After  the  return  of  the  three  months'  company 
to  Concord,  in  1861,  Captain  Prescott  raised  a  new 
company  of  volunteers,  and  Captain  Bowers  an 
other.  Each  of  these  companies  included  recruits 
from  this  town,  and  they  formed  part  of  the  Thir 
ty-second  Regiment  of  Massachusetts  Volunteers. 
Enlisting  for  three  years,  and  remaining  to  the  end 
of  the  war,  these  troops  saw  every  variety  of  hard 
service  which  the  war  offered,  and,  though  suffering 
at  first  some  disadvantage  from  change  of  com 
manders,  and  from  severe  losses,  they  grew  at  last, 
under  the  command  of  Colonel  Prescott,  to  an  ex 
cellent  reputation,  attested  by  the  names  of  the 
thirty  battles  they  were  authorized  to  inscribe  on 
their  flag,  and  by  the  important  position  usually 
assigned  them  in  the  field. 

I  have  found  many  notes  of  their  rough  experi 
ence  in  the  march  and  in  the  field.  In  McClellan's 
retreat  in  the  Peninsula,  in  July,  1862,  "  it  is  all 
our  men  can  do  to  draw  their  feet  out  of  the  mud. 
We  marched  one  mile  through  mud,  without  exag 
geration,  one  foot  deep,  —  a  good  deal  of  the  way 


118  ADDRESS. 

over  my  boots,  and  with  short  rations ;  on  one  day 
nothing  but  liver,  blackberries,  and  pennyroyal 
tea."  —  "  At  Fredericksburg  we  lay  eleven  hours 
in  one  spot  without  moving,  except  to  rise  and 
fire."  The  next  note  is,  "  cracker  for  a  day  and 
a  half,  —  but  all  right."  Another  day,  "  had  not 
left  the  ranks  for  thirty  hours,  and  the  nights  were 
broken  by  frequent  alarms.  How  would  Concord 
people,"  he  asks,  "  like  to  pass  the  night  011  the 
battle-field,  and  hear  the  dying  cry  for  help,  and 
not  be  able  to  go  to  them  ?  "  But  the  regiment  did 
good  service  at  Harrison's  Landing,  and  at  Antie- 
tam,  under  Colonel  Parker  ;  and  at  Fredericks- 
burg,  in  December,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Prescott 
loudly  expresses  his  satisfaction  at  his  comrades, 
now  and  then  particularizing  names  :  "  Bowers, 
Shepard  and  Lauriat  are  as  brave  as  lions." 

At  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  in  July,  1863,  the 
brigade  of  which  the  Thirty-second  Regiment  formed 
a  part,  was  in  line  of  battle  seventy-two  hours,  and 
suffered  severely.  Colonel  Prescott's  regiment 
went  in  with  two  hundred  and  ten  men,  nineteen 
officers.  On  the  second  of  July  they  had  to  cross 
the  famous  wheat-field,  under  fire  from  the  rebels 
in  front  and  on  both  flanks.  Seventy  men  were 
killed  or  wounded  out  of  seven  companies.  Here 
Francis  Buttrick,  whose  manly  beauty  all  of  us  re 
member,  and  Sergeant  Appleton,  an  excellent  sol- 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,   CONCORD. 

dier,  were  fatally  wounded.  The  colonel  was  hit 
by  three  bullets.  "  I  feel,"  he  writes,  "  I  have 
much  to  be  thankful  for  that  my  life  is  spared,  al 
though  I  would  willingly  die  to  have  the  regiment 
do  as  well  as  they  have  done.  Our  colors  had  sev 
eral  holes  made,  and  were  badly  torn.  One  bullet 
hit  the  staff  which  the  bearer  had  in  his  hand.  The 
color-bearer  is  brave  as  a  lion ;  he  will  go  anywhere 
you  say,  and  no  questions  asked  ;  his  name  is  Mar 
shall  Davis."  The  Colonel  took  evident  pleasure 
in  the  fact  that  he  could  account  for  all  his  men. 
There  were  so  many  killed,  so  many  wounded,  — 
but  no  missing.  For  that  word  "  missing  "  was  apt 
to  mean  skulking.  Another  incident :  "  A  friend 
of  Lieutenant  Barrow  complains  that  we  did  not 
treat  his  body  with  respect,  inasmuch  as  we  did  not 
send  it  home.  I  think  we  were  very  fortunate  to 
save  it  at  all,  for  in  ten  minutes  after  he  was  killed 
the  rebels  occupied  the  ground,  and  we  had  to 
carry  him  and  all  of  our  wounded  nearly  two  miles 
in  blankets.  There  was  no  place  nearer  than  Bal 
timore  where  we  could  have  got  a  coffin,  and  I  sup 
pose  it  was  eighty  miles  there.  We  laid  him  in 
two  double  blankets,  and  then  sent  off  a  long  dis 
tance  and  got  boards  off  a  barn  to  make  the  best 
coffin  we  could,  and  gave  him  burial." 

After  Gettysburg,  Colonel  Prescott  remarks  that 
our  regiment  is  highly  complimented.     When  Col- 


120  ADDRESS. 

onel  Guriiey,  of  the  Ninth,  came  to  him  the  next 
day  to  tell  him  that  "  folks  are  just  beginning  to 
appreciate  the  Thirty-second  Regiment :  it  always 
was  a  good  regiment,  and  people  are  just  beginning 
to  find  it  out ;  "  Colonel  Prescott  notes  in  his  jour 
nal,  —  "  Pity  they  have  not  found  it  out  before  it 
was  all  gone.  We  have  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven  guns  this  morning." 

Let  me  add  an  extract  from  the  official  report  of 
the  brigade  commander :  "  Word  was  sent  by  Gen 
eral  Barnes,  that,  when  we  retired,  we  should  fall 
back  under  cover  of  the  woods.  This  order  was 
communicated  to  Colonel  Prescott,  whose  regiment 
was  then  under  the  hottest  fire.  Understanding  it 
to  be  a  peremptory  order  to  retire  them,  he  replied, 
4 1  don't  want  to  retire ;  I  am  not  ready  to  retire  ; 
I  can  hold  this  place  ; '  and  he  made  good  his  as 
sertion.  Being  informed  that  he  misunderstood 
the  order,  which  was  only  to  inform  him  how  to 
retire  when  it  became  necessary,  he  was  satisfied, 
and  he  and  his  command  held  their  ground  man 
fully."  It  was  said  that  Colonel  Prescott's  reply, 
when  reported,  pleased  the  Acting  Brigadier-Gen 
eral  Sweitzer  mightily. 

After  Gettysburg,  the  Thirty-second  Regiment 
saw  hard  service  at  Rappahannock  Station ;  and  at 
Baltimore,  in  Virginia,  where  they  were  drawn  up 
in  battle  order  for  ten  days  successively :  crossing 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,   CONCORD.        121 

the  Eapidan,  and  suffering  from  such  extreme  cold, 
a  few  days  later,  at  Mine  Run,  that  the  men  were 
compelled  to  break  rank  and  run  in  circles  to  keep 
themselves  from  being  frozen.  On  the  third  of 
December,  they  went  into  winter  quarters. 

I  must  not  follow  the  multiplied  details  that 
make  the  hard  work  of  the  next  year.  But  the 
campaign  in  the  Wilderness  surpassed  all  their 
worst  experience  hitherto  of  the  soldier's  life.  On 
the  third  of  May,  they  crossed  the  Rapidan  for  the 
fifth  time.  On  the  twelfth,  at  Laurel  Hill,  the 
regiment  had  twenty-one  killed  and  seventy-five 
wounded,  including  five  officers.  "  The  regiment 
has  been  in  the  front  and  centre  since  the  battle 
begun,  eight  and  a  half  clays  ago,  and  is  now  build 
ing  breastworks  on  the  Fredericksburg  road.  This 
has  been  the  hardest  fight  the  world  ever  knew.  I 
think  the  loss  of  our  army  will  be  forty  thousand. 
Every  day,  for  the  last  eight  days,  there  has  been 
a  terrible  battle  the  whole  length  of  the  line.  One 
day  they  drove  us ;  but  it  has  been  regular  bull 
dog  fighting."  On  the  twenty-first,  they  had  been, 
for  seventeen  days  and  nights,  under  arms  without 
rest.  On  the  twenty-third,  they  crossed  the  North 
Anna,  and  achieved  a  great  success.  On  the  thir 
tieth,  we  learn,  "  Our  regiment  has  never  been  in 
the  second  line  since  we  crossed  the  Rapidan,  on 
the  third."  On  the  night  of  the  thirtieth,  —  «  The 


122  ADDRESS. 

hardest  day  we  ever  had.  We  have  been  in  the 
first  line  twenty-six  days,  and  fighting  every  day 
but  two  ;  whilst  your  newspapers  talk  of  the  inac 
tivity  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  If  those  writ 
ers  could  be  here  and  fight  all  day,  and  sleep  in 
the  trenches,  and  be  called  up  several  times  in  the 
night  by  picket-firing,  they  would  not  call  it  inac 
tive."  June  fourth  is  marked  in  the  diary  as  "An 
awful  day ;  —  two  hundred  men  lost  to  the  com 
mand  ;  "  and  not  until  the  fifth  of  June  comes  at 
last  a  respite  for  a  short  space,  during  which  the 
men  drew  shoes  and  socks,  and  the  officers  were 
able  to  send  to  the  wagons  and  procure  a  change 
of  clothes,  for  the  first  time  in  five  weeks. 

But  from  these  incessant  labors  there  was  now  to 
be  rest  for  one  head,  —  the  honored  and  beloved 
commander  of  the  regiment.  On  the  sixteenth  of 
June,  they  crossed  the  James  River,  and  marched 
to  within  three  miles  of  Petersburg.  Early  in  the 
morning  of  the  eighteenth  they  went  to  the  front, 
formed  line  of  battle,  and  were  ordered  to  take  the 
Norfolk  and  Petersburg  Railroad  from  the  Rebels. 
In  this  charge,  Colonel  George  L.  Prescott  was 
mortally  wounded.  After  driving  the  enemy  from 
the  railroad,  crossing  it,  and  climbing  the  farther 
bank  to  continue  the  charge,  he  was  struck,  in  front 
of  his  command,  by  a  musket  ball  which  entered 
his  breast  near  the  heart.  He  was  carried  off  the 


SOLDIERS'  MONUMENT,   CONCORD.        123 

field  to  the  division  hospital,  and  died  on  the  fol 
lowing  morning.  On  his  death-bed,  he  received 
the  needless  assurances  of  his  general,  that  "  he  had 
done  more  than  all  his  duty,"  —  needless  to  a  con 
science  so  faithful  and  unspotted.  One  of  his  towns 
men  and  comrades,  a  sergeant  in  his  regiment,  writ 
ing  to  his  own  family,  uses  these  words  :  "  He  was 
one  of  the  few  men  who  fight  for  principle.  He 
did  not  fight  for  glory,  honor,  nor  money,  but  be 
cause  he  thought  it  his  duty.  These  are  not  my 
feelings  only,  but  of  the  whole  regiment." 

On  the  first  of  January,  1865,  the  Thirty-second 
Regiment  made  itself  comfortable  in  log  huts,  a 
mile  south  of  our  rear  line  of  works  before  Peters 
burg.  On  the  fourth  of  February,  sudden  orders, 
came  to  move  next  morning  at  daylight.  At  Dab- 
ney's  Mills,  in  a  sharp  fight,  they  lost  seventy-four 
in  killed,  wounded  and  missing.  Here  Major  Shep- 
ard  was  taken  prisoner.  The  lines  were  held  until 
the  tenth,  with  more  than  usual  suffering  from  snow 
and  hail  and  intense  cold,  added  to  the  annoyance 
of  the  artillery  fire.  On  the  first  of  April,  the  reg 
iment  connected  with  Sheridan's  cavalry,  near  the 
Five  Forks,  and  took  an  important  part  in  that  bat 
tle  which  opened  Petersburg  and  Richmond,  and 
forced  the  surrender  of  Lee.  On  the  ninth,  they 
marched  in  support  of  the  cavalry,  and  were  advan 
cing  in  a  grand  charge,  when  the  white  flag  of  Gen. 


124  ADDRESS. 

Lee  appeared.  The  brigade  of  which  the  Thirty- 
second  Regiment  formed  part  was  detailed  to  receive 
the  formal  surrender  of  the  Rebel  arms.  The  home 
ward  march  began  on  the  thirteenth,  and  the  regi 
ment  was  mustered  out  in  the  field,  at  Washington, 
on  the  twenty-eighth  of  June,  and  arrived  in  Bos 
ton  on  the  first  of  July. 

Fellow-citizens :  The  obelisk  records  only  the 
names  of  the  dead.  There  is  something  partial  jn 
this  distribution  of  honor.  Those  who  went  through 
those  dreadful  fields  and  returned  not,  deserve 
much  more  than  all  the  honor  we  can  pay.  But 
those  also  who  went  through  the  same  fields  and 
returned  alive,  put  just  as  much  at  hazard  as  those 
who  died,  and,  in  other  countries,  would  wear  dis 
tinctive  badges  of  honor  as  long  as  they  lived.  I 
hope  the  disuse  of  such  medals  or  badges  in  this 
country  only  signifies  that  everybody  knows  these 
men,  and  carries  their  deed  in  such  lively  remem 
brance  that  they  require  no  badge  or  reminder.  I 
am  sure  I  need  not  bespeak  your  gratitude  to  these 
fellow-citizens  and  neighbors  of  ours.  I  hope  they 
will  be  content  with  the  laurels  of  one  war. 

But  let  me,  in  behalf  of  this  assembly,  speak 
directly  to  you,  our  defenders,  and  say,  that  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  if  danger  should  ever  threaten  the 
homes  which  you  guard,  the  knowledge  of  your 


APPENDIX.  125 

presence  will  be  a  wall  of  fire  for  their  protection. 
Brave  men !  you  will  hardly  be  called  to  see  again 
fields  as  terrible  as  those  you  have  already  trampled 
with  your  victories. 

There  are  people  who  can  hardly  read  the  names 
on  yonder  bronze  tablet,  the  mist  so  gathers  in  their 
eyes.  Three  of  the  names  are  of  sons  of  one  family. 
A  gloom  gathers  on  this  assembly,  composed  as  it 
is  of  kindred  men  and  women,  for,  in  many  houses, 
the  dearest  and  noblest  is  gone  from  their  hearth 
stone.  Yet  it  is  tinged  with  light  from  heaven.  A 
duty  so  severe  has  been  discharged,  and  with  such 
immense  results  of  good,  lifting  private  sacrifice  to 
the  sublime,  that,  though  the  cannon  volleys  have 
a  sound  of  funeral  echoes,  they  can  yet  hear 
through  them  the  benedictions  of  their  country  and 
mankind. 


APPENDIX. 

IN  the  above  Address  I  have  been  compelled  to 
suppress  more  details  of  personal  interest  than  I 
have  used.  But  I  do  not  like  to  omit  the  testimony 
to  the  character  of  the  Commander  of  the  Thirty- 
second  Massachusetts  Regiment,  given  in  the  fol 
lowing  letter  by  one  of  his  soldiers :  — 


126  APPENDIX. 

NEAR  PETERSBURG,  VIRGINIA, 

June  20,  1864. 
DEAR  FATHER  : 

With  feelings  of  deep  regret,  I  inform  you  that  Colo 
nel  Prescott,  our  brave  and  lamented  leader,  is  no  more. 
He  was  shot  through  the  body,  near  the  heart,  on  the 
eighteenth  day  of  June,  and  died  the  following  morning. 
On  the  morning  of  the  eighteenth,  our  division  was  not  in 
line.  Keveille  was  at  an  early  hour,  and  before  long  we 
were  moving  to  the  front.  Soon  we  passed  the  ground 
where  the  Ninth  Corps  drove  the  enemy  from  their  forti 
fied  lines,  and  came  upon  and  formed  our  line  in  rear  of 
Crawford's  Division.  In  front  of  us,  and  one  mile  dis 
tant,  the  Rebels'  lines  of  works  could  be  seen.  Between 
us  and  them,  and  in  a  deep  gulley,  was  the  Norfolk  and 
Petersburg  railroad.  Soon  the  order  came  for  us  to  take 
the  railroad  from  the  enemy,  whose  advance  then  held  it. 
Four  regiments  of  our  brigade  were  to  head  the  charge ; 
so  the  32d  Massachusetts,  62d,  91st  and  155th  Penn 
sylvania  regiments,  under  command  of  Colonel  Gregory, 
moved  forward  in  good  order,  the  enemy  keeping  up  a 
steady  fire  ah1  the  time.  Ah1  went  well  till  we  reached 
the  road.  The  Rebels  left  when  they  saw  us  advance, 
and,  when  we  reached  the  road,  they  were  running  away. 
But  here  our  troubles  began.  The  banks,  on  each  side 
of  the  road,  were  about  thirty  feet  high,  and,  being  stiff 
clay,  were  nearly  perpendicular.  We  got  down  well 
enough,  because  we  got  started,  and  were  rolled  to  the 
bottom,  a  confused  pile  of  Yanks.  Now  to  climb  the 
other  side  !  It  was  impossible  to  get  up  by  climbing,  for 


APPENDIX.  127 

the  side  of  it  was  like  the  side  of  a  house.  By  dint  of 
getting  on  each  other's  shoulders  and  making  holes  for 
our  feet  with  bayonets,  a  few  of  us  got  up ;  reaching 
our  guns  down  to  the  others,  we  all  finally  got  over. 
Meanwhile,  a  storm  of  bullets  was  rained  upon  us. 
Through  it  all,  Colonel  Prescott  was  cool  and  collected, 
encouraging  the  men  to  do  their  best.  After  we  were 
almost  all  across,  he  moved  out  in  front  of  the  line,  and 
called  the  men  out  to  him,  saying,  "  Come  on,  men  ;  form 
our  line  here."  The  color-bearer  stepped  towards  him, 
when  a  bullet  struck  the  Colonel,  passed  through  him, 
and  wounded  the  color-bearer,  Sergeant  Giles,  of  Com 
pany  G.  Calmly  the  Colonel  turned,  and  said,  "  I  am 
wounded  ;  some  one  help  me  off."  A  sergeant  of  Com 
pany  B,  and  one  of  the  2ft st  Pennsylvania,  helped  him 
off.  This  man  told  me,  last  night,  all  that  the  Colonel 
said,  while  going  off.  He  was  afraid  we  would  be  driven 
back,  and  wanted  these  men  to  stick  by  him.  He  said, 
"  I  die  for  my  country."  He  seemed  to  be  conscious  that 
death  was  near  to  him,  and  said  the  wound  was  near  his 
heart ;  wanted  the  sergeant  of  Company  B,  to  write  to 
his  family,  and  tell  them  all  about  him.  He  will  write 
to  Mrs.  Prescott,  probably  ;  but  if  they  do  not  hear  from 
some  one  an  account  of  his  death,  I  wish  you  would  show 
this  to  Mrs.  Prescott.  He  died  in  the  division  hospital, 
night  before  last,  and  his  remains  will  probably  be  sent 
to  Concord.  We  lament  his  loss  in  the  regiment  very 
much.  He  was  like  a  father  to  us,  —  always  counselling 
us  to  be  firm  in  the  path  of  duty,  and  setting  the  exam 
ple  himself.  I  think  a  more  moral  man,  or  one  more 


128  APPENDIX. 

likely  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  cannot  be  found 
in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  No  man  ever  heard  him 
swear,  or  saw  him  use  liquor,  since  we  were  in  the  ser 
vice.  I  wish  there  was  some  way  for  the  regiment  to 
pay  some  tribute  to  his  memory.  But  the  folks  at  home 
must  do  this  for  the  present.  The  Thirty-second  Regi 
ment  has  lost  its  leader,  and  calls  on  the  people  of  Con 
cord  to  console  the  afflicted  family  of  the  brave  departed, 
by  showing  their  esteem  for  him  in  some  manner.  He 
was  one  of  the  few  men  who  fight  for  principle,  —  pure 
principle.  He  did  not  fight  for  glory,  honor  nor  money, 
but  because  he  thought  it  his  duty.  These  are  not  my 
feelings  only,  but  of  the  whole  regiment.  I  want  you  to 
show  this  to  every  one,  so  they  can  see  what  we  thought 
of  the  Colonel,  and  how  he  died  in  front  of  his  regiment. 
God  bless  and  comfort  his  poor  family.  Perhaps  people 
think  soldiers  have  no  feeling,  but  it  is  not  so.  We  feel 
deep  anxiety  for  the  families  of  all  our  dear  comrades. 
CHARLES  BARTLETT, 
Sergeant  Company  G, 
Thirty-second  Massachusetts  Volunteers. 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED  IN  CONCORD  ON  THE  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  EMAN 
CIPATION   OF   THE   NEGROES   IN   THE   BRITISH  WEST 
INDIES,  AUGUST  1,  1844. 


ADDEESS 

ON  EMANCIPATION  IN  THE   BRITISH   WEST  INDIES. 


FRIENDS  AND  FELLOW  CITIZENS: 

We  are  met  to  exchange  congratulations  on  the 
anniversary  of  an  event  singular  in  the  history  of 
civilization  ;  a  day  of  reason ;  of  the  clear  light ; 
of  that  which  makes  us  better  than  a  flock  of  birds 
and  beasts  :  a  day  which  gave  the  immense  fortifi 
cation  of  a  fact,  of  gross  history,  to  ethical  abstrac 
tions.  It  was  the  settlement,  as  far  as  a  great  Em 
pire  was  concerned,  of  a  question  on  which  almost 
every  leading  citizen  in  it  had  taken  care  to  record 
his  vote ;  one  which  for  many  years  absorbed  the 
attention  of  the  best  and  most  eminent  of  mankind. 
I  might  well  hesitate,  coming  from  other  studies, 
and  without  the  smallest  claim  to  be  a  special  la 
borer  in  this  work  of  humanity,  to  undertake  to  set 
this  matter  before  you ;  which  ought  rather  to  be 
done  by  a  strict  co-operation  of  many  well-advised 
persons  ;  but  I  shall  not  apologize  for  my  weakness. 
In  this  cause,  no  man's  weakness  is  any  prejudice : 
it  has  a  thousand  sons ;  if  one  man  cannot  speak, 


132  ADDRESS. 

ten  others  can;  and,  whether  by  the  wisdom  of 
its  friends,  or  by  the  folly  of  the  adversaries ;  by 
speech  and  by  silence ;  by  doing  and  by  omitting 
to  do,  it  goes  forward.  Therefore  I  will  speak,  — 
or,  not  I,  but  the  might  of  liberty  in  my  weakness. 
The  subject  is  said  to  have  the  property  of  making 
dull  men  eloquent. 

It  has  been  in  all  men's  experience  a  marked 
effect  of  the  enterprise  in  behalf  of  the  African,  to 
generate  an  overbearing  and  defying  spirit.  The 
institution  of  slavery  seems  to  its  opponent  to  have 
but  one  side,  and  he  feels  that  none  but  a  stupid 
or  a  malignant  person  can  hesitate  on  a  view  of  the 
facts.  Under  such  an  impulse,  I  was  about  to  say, 
If  any  cannot  speak,  or  cannot  hear  the  words  of 
freedom,  let  him  go  hence,  —  I  had  almost  said, 
Creep  into  your  grave,  the  universe  has  no  need  of 
you  !  But  I  have  thought  better :  let  him  not  go. 
When  we  consider  what  remains  to  be  done  for 
this  interest  in  this  country,  the  dictates  of  human 
ity  make  us  tender  of  such  as  are  not  yet  per 
suaded.  The  hardest  selfishness  is  to  be  borne 
with.  Let  us  withhold  every  reproachful,  and,  if 
we  can,  every  indignant  remark.  In  this  cause,  we 
must  renounce  our  temper,  and  the  risings  of  pride. 
If  there  be  any  man  who  thinks  the  ruin  of  a  race 
of  men  a  small  matter,  compared  with  the  last  deco 
ration  and  completions  of  his  own  comfort,  —  who 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  133 

would  not  so  much  as  part  with  his  ice-cream,  to 
save  them  from  rapine  and  manacles,  I  think  I 
must  not  hesitate  to  satisfy  that  man  that  also  his 
cream  and  vanilla  are  safer  and  cheaper  by  placing 
the  negro  nation  on  a  fair  footing,  than  by  robbing 
them.  If  the  Virginian  piques  himself  on  the  pic 
turesque  luxury  of  his  vassalage,  on  the  heavy 
Ethiopian  manners  of  his  house-servants,  their  si 
lent  obedience,  their  hue  of  bronze,  their  turbaned 
heads,  and  would  not  exchange  them  for  the  more 
intelligent  but  precarious  hired  service  of  whites,  I 
shall  not  refuse  to  show  him  that  when  their  free- 
papers  are  made  out,  it  will  still  be  their  interest 
to  remain  on  his  estate,  and  that  the  oldest  plant 
ers  of  Jamaica  are  convinced  that  it  is  cheaper  to 
pay  wages  than  to  own  the  slave. 

The  history  of  mankind  interests  us  only  as  it 
exhibits  a  steady  gain  of  truth  and  right,  in  the 
incessant  conflict  which  it  records  between  the 
material  and  the  moral  nature.  From  the  earliest 
monuments  it  appears  that  one  race  was  victim  and 
served  the  other  races.  In  the  oldest  temples  of 
Egypt,  negro  captives  are  painted  on  the  tombs  of 
kings,  in  such  attitudes  as  to  show  that  they  are 
on  the  point  of  being  executed  ;  and  Herodotus, 
our  oldest  historian,  relates  that  the  Troglodytes 
hunted  the  Ethiopians  in  four-horse  chariots.  From 
the  earliest  time,  the  negro  has  been  an  article  of 


134  ADDRESS. 

luxury  to  the  commercial  nations.  So  has  it  been, 
down  to  the  day  that  has  just  dawned  on  the  world. 
Language  must  be  raked,  the  secrets  of  slaughter 
houses  and  infamous  holes  that  cannot  front  the 
day,  must  be  ransacked,  to  tell  what  negro-slavery 
has  been.  These  men,  our  benefactors,  as  they  are 
producers  of  corn  and  wine,  of  coffee,  of  tobacco, 
of  cotton,  of  sugar,  of  rum  and  brandy;  gentle  and 
joyous  themselves,  and  producers  of  comfort  and 
luxury  for  the  civilized  world, — there  seated  in  the 
finest  climates  of  the  globe,  children  of  the  sun,  — 
I  am  heart-sick  when  I  read  how  they  came  there, 
and  how  they  are  kept  there.  Their  case  was  left 
out  of  the  mind  and  out  of  the  heart  of  their  broth 
ers.  The  prizes  of  society,  the  trumpet  of  fame,  the 
privileges  of  learning,  of  culture,  of  religion,  the 
decencies  and  joys  of  marriage,  honor,  obedience, 
personal  authority  and  a  perpetual  melioration  into 
a  finer  civility,  —  these  were  for  all,  but  not  for 
them.  For  the  negro,  was  the  slave-ship  to  begin 
with,  in  whose  filthy  hold  he  sat  in  irons,  unable  to 
lie  down ;  bad  food,  and  insufficiency  of  that ;  dis- 
franchisement ;  no  property  in  the  rags  that  cov 
ered  him ;  no  marriage,  110  right  in  the  poor  black 
woman  that  cherished  him  in  her  bosom,  no  right 
to  the  children  of  his  body ;  no  security  from  the 
humors,  none  from  the  crimes,  none  from  the  appe 
tites  of  his  master :  toil,  famine,  insult  and  flog- 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  135 

ging ;  and,  when  he  sank  in  the  furrow,  no  wind  of 
good  fame  blew  over  him,  no  priest  of  salvation 
visited  him  with  glad  .tidings:  but  he  went  down 
to  death  with  dusky  dreams  of  African  shadow- 
catchers  and  Obeahs  hunting  him.  Very  sad  was 
the  negro  tradition,  that  the  Great  Spirit,  in  the 
beginning,  offered  the  black  man,  whom  he  loved 
better  than  the  buckra,  or  white,  his  choice  of  two 
boxes,  a  big  and  a  little  one.  The  black  man  was 
greedy,  and  chose  the  largest.  "  The  buckra  box 
was  full  up  with  pen,  paper  and  whip,  and  the 
negro  box  with  hoe  and  bill ;  and  hoe  and  bill  for 
negro  to  this  day." 

But  the  crude  element  of  good  in  human  affairs 
must  work  and  ripen,  spite  of  whips  and  plantation- 
laws  and  West  Indian  interest.  Conscience  rolled 
on  its  pillow,  and  could  not  sleep.  We  sympathize 
very  tenderly  here  with  the  poor  aggrieved  planter, 
of  whom  so  many  unpleasant  things  are  said ;  but 
if  we  saw  the  whip  applied  to  old  men,  to  tender 
women ;  and,  undeniably,  though  I  shrink  to  say 
so,  pregnant  women  set  in  the  treadmill  for  re 
fusing  to  work  ;  when,  not  they,  but  the  eternal 
law  of  animal  nature  refused  to  work  ;  —  if  we  saw 
men's  backs  flayed  with  cowhides,  and  "  hot  rum 
poured  on,  superinduced  with  brine  or  pickle, 
rubbed  in  with  a  cornhusk,  in  the  scorching  heat 
of  the  sun ; "  —  if  we  saw  the  runaways  hunted 


136  ADDRESS. 

with  blood-hounds  into  swamps  and  hills ;  and,  in 
cases  of  passion,  a  planter  throwing  his  negro  into 
a  copper  of  boiling  cane-juice,  —  if  we  saw  these 
things  with  eyes,  we  too  should  wince.  They  are 
not  pleasant  sights.  The  blood  is  moral :  the  blood 
is  anti-slavery :  it  runs  cold  in  the  veins  :  the  stom 
ach  rises  with  disgust,  and  curses  slavery.  Well,  so 
it  happened  ;  a  good  man  or  woman,  a  country  boy 
or  girl,  —  it  would  so  fall  out,  —  once  in  a  while 
saw  these  injuries  and  had  the  indiscretion  to  tell 
of  them.  The  horrid  story  ran  and  flew ;  the  winds 
blew  it  all  over  the  world.  They  who  heard  it 
asked  their  rich  and  great  friends  if  it  was  true,  or 
only  missionary  lies.  The  richest  and  greatest,  the 
prime  minister  of  England,  the  king's  privy  coun 
cil  were  obliged  to  say  that  it  was  too  true.  It 
became  plain  to  all  men,  the  more  this  business  was 
looked  into,  that  the  crimes  and  cruelties  of  the 
slave-traders  and  slave-owners  could  not  be  over 
stated.  The  more  it  was  searched,  the  more  shock 
ing  anecdotes  came  up,  —  things  not  to  be  spoken. 
Humane  persons  who  were  informed  of  the  reports, 
insisted  on  proving  them.  Granville  Sharpe  was 
accidentally  made  acquainted  with  the  sufferings  of 
a  slave,  whom  a  West  Indian  planter  had  brought 
with  him  to  London  and  had  beaten  with  a  pistol 
on  his  head,  so  badly  that  his  whole  body  became 
diseased,  and  the  man  useless  to  his  master,  who 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION. 

left  him  to  go  whither  he  pleased.  The  man  appli( 
to  Mr.  William  Sharpe,  a  charitable  surgeon,  who 
attended  the  diseases  of  the  poor.  In  process  of 
time,  he  was  healed.  Granville  Sharpe  found  him 
at  his  brother's  and  procured  a  place  for  him  in  an 
apothecary's  shop.  The  master  accidentally  met 
his  recovered  slave,  and  instantly  endeavored  to 
get  possession  of  him  again.  Sharpe  protected  the 
slave.  In  consulting  with  the  lawyers,  they  told 
Sharpe  the  laws  were  against  him.  Sharpe  would 
not  believe  it ;  no  prescription  on  earth  could  ever 
render  such  iniquities  legal.  '  But  the  decisions  are 
against  you,  and  Lord  Mansfield,  now  Chief  Justice 
of  England,  leans  to  the  decisions.'  Sharpe  in 
stantly  sat  down  and  gave  himself  to  the  study  of 
English  law  for  more  than  two  years,  until  he  had 
proved  that  the  opinions  relied  on,  of  Talbot  and 
Yorke,  were  incompatible  with  the  former  English 
decisions  and  with  the  whole  spirit  of  English  law. 
He  published  his  book  in  1769,  and  he  so  filled  the 
heads  and  hearts  of  his  advocates  that  when  he 
brought  the  case  of  George  Somerset,  another  slave, 
before  Lord  Mansfield,  the  slavish  decisions  were 
set  aside,  and  equity  affirmed.  There  is  a  sparkle 
of  God's  righteousness  in  Lord  Mansfield's  judg 
ment,  which  does  the  heart  good.  Very  unwilling 
had  that  great  lawyer  been  to  reverse  the  late  de 
cisions  ;  he  suggested  twice  from  the  bench,  in  the 


138  ADDRESS. 

course  of  the  trial,  how  the  question  might  be  got 
rid  of :  but  the  hint  was  not  taken  ;  the  case  was 
adjourned  again  and  again,  and  judgment  delayed. 
At  last  judgment  was  demanded,  and  on  the  22d 
June,  1772,  Lord  Mansfield  is  reported  to  have  de 
cided  in  these  words  :  — 

"  Immemorial  usage  preserves  the  memory  of 
positive  law,  long  after  all  traces  of  the  occasion, 
reason,  authority  and  time  of  its  introduction,  are 
lost ;  and  in  a  case  so  odious  as  the  condition  of 
slaves,  must  be  taken  strictly  ;  (tracing  the  subject 
to  natural  principles,  the  claim  of  slavery  never 
can  be  supported.)  The  power  claimed  by  this 
return  never  was  in  use  here.  We  cannot  say  the 
cause  set  forth  by  this  return  is  allowed  or  approved 
of  by  the  laws  of  this  kingdom  ;  and  therefore  the 
man  must  be  discharged." 

This  decision  established  the  principle  that  the 
"air  of  England  is  too  pure  for  any  slave  to 
breathe,"  but  the  wrongs  in  the  islands  were  not 
thereby  touched.  Public  attention,  however,  was 
drawn  that  way,  and  the  methods  of  the  stealing 
and  the  transportation  from  Africa  became  noised 
abroad.  The  Quakers  got  the  story.  In  their 
plain  meeting-houses  and  prim  dwellings  this  dis 
mal  agitation  got  entrance.  They  were  rich  :  they 
owned,  for  debt  or  by  inheritance,  island  prop 
erty  ;  they  were  religious,  tender-hearted  men  and 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  139 

women  ;  and  they  had  to  hear  the  news  and  di 
gest  it  as  they  could.  Six  Quakers  met  in  Lon 
don  on  the  6th  July,  1783,  —  William  DiUwyn, 
Samuel  Hoar,  George  Harrison,  Thomas  Knowles, 
John  Lloyd,  Joseph  Woods,  "  to  consider  what  step 
they  should  take  for  the  relief  and  liberation  of  the 
negro  slaves  in  the  West  Indies,  and  for  the  discour 
agement  of  the  slave-trade  on  the  coast  of  Africa." 
They  made  friends  and  raised  money  for  the  slave  ; 
they  interested  their  Yearly  Meeting ;  and  all  Eng 
lish  and  all  American  Quakers.  John  Woolman 
of  New  Jersey,  whilst  yet  an  apprentice,  was  un 
easy  in  his  mind  when  he  was  set  to  write  a  bill  of 
sale  of  a  negro,  for  his  master.  He  gave  his  testi 
mony  against  the  traffic,  in  Maryland  and  Virginia. 
Thomas  Clarkson  was  a  youth  at  Cambridge,  Eng 
land,  when  the  subject  given  out  for  a  Latin  prize 
dissertation  was,  "Is  it  right  to  make  slaves  of 
others  against  their  will?  "  He  wrote  an  essay,  and 
won  the  prize  ;  but  he  wrote  too  well  for  his  own 
peace  ;  he  began  to  ask  himself  if  these  things 
could  be  true  ;  and  if  they  were,  he  could  no  longer 
rest.  He  left  Cambridge  ;  he  fell  in  with  the  six 
Quakers.  They  engaged  him  to  act  for  them.  He 
himself  interested  Mr.  Wilberforce  in  the  matter. 
The  shipmasters  in  that  trade  were  the  greatest 
miscreants,  and  guilty  of  every  barbarity  to  their 
own  crews.  Clarkson  went  to  Bristol,  made  him- 


140  ADDRESS. 

self  acquainted  with  the  interior  of  the  slave-ships 
and  the  details  of  the  trade.  The  facts  confirmed 
his  sentiment,  "  that  Providence  had  never  made 
that  to  be  wise  which  was  immoral,  and  that  the 
slave-trade  was  as  impolitic  as  it  was  unjust ;  " 
that  it  was  found  peculiarly  fatal  to  those  employed 
in  it.  More  seamen  died  in  that  trade  in  one  year 
than  in  the  whole  remaining  trade  of  the  country 
in  two.  Mr.  Pitt  and  Mr.  Fox  were  drawn  into 
the  generous  enterprise.  In  1788,  the  House  of 
Commons  voted  Parliamentary  inquiry.  In  1791, 
a  bill  to  abolish  the  trade  was  brought  in  by  Wil- 
berforce,  and  supported  by  him  and  by  Fox  and 
Burke  and  Pitt,  with  the  utmost  ability  and  faith 
fulness  ;  resisted  by  the  planters  and  the  whole 
West  Indian  interest,  and  lost.  During  the  next 
sixteen  years,  ten  times,  year  after  year,  the  attempt 
was  renewed  by  Mr.  Wilberforce,  and  ten  times 
defeated  by  the  planters.  The  king,  and  all  the 
royal  family  but  one,  were  against  it.  These  de 
bates  are  instructive,  as  they  show  on  what  grounds 
the  trade  was  assailed  and  defended.  Everything 
generous,  wise,  and  sprightly  is  sure  to  come  to  the 
attack.  On  the  other  part  are  found  cold  prudence, 
barefaced  selfishness  and  silent  votes.  But  the  na 
tion  was  aroused  to  enthusiasm.  Every  horrid 
fact  became  known.  In  1791,  three  hundred  thou 
sand  persons  in  Britain  pledged  themselves  to  ab- 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  141 

stain  from  all  articles  of  island  produce.  The  plant 
ers  were  obliged  to  give  way;  and  in  1807,  on 
the  25th  March,  the  bill  passed,  and  the  slave-trade 
was  abolished. 

The  assailants  of  slavery  had  early  agreed  to 
limit  their  political  action  on  this  subject  to  the 
abolition  of  the  trade,  but  Granville  Sharpe,  as  a 
matter  of  conscience,  whilst  he  acted  as  chairman 
of  the  London  Committee,  felt  constrained  to  record 
his  protest  against  the  limitation,  declaring  that 
slavery  was  as  much  a  crime  against  the  Divine 
law,  as  the  slave-trade.  The  trade,  under  false 
flags,  went  on  as  before.  In  1821,  according  to 
official  documents  presented  to  the  American  gov 
ernment  by  the  Colonization  Society,  200,000  slaves 
were  deported  from  Africa.  Nearly  30,000  were 
landed  in  the  port  of  Havana  alone.  In  consequence 
of  the  dangers  of  the  trade  growing  out  of  the  act 
of  abolition,  ships  were  built  sharp  for  swiftness, 
and  with  a  frightful  disregard  of  the  comfort  of  the 
victims  they  were  destined  to  transport.  They  car 
ried  five,  six,  even  seven  hundred  stowed  in  a  ship 
built  so  narrow  as  to  be  unsafe,  being  made  just 
broad  enough  on  the  beam  to  keep  the  sea.  In  at 
tempting  to  make  its  escape  from  the  pursuit  of  a 
man-of-war,  one  ship  flung  five  hundred  slaves  alive 
into  the  sea.  These  facts  went  into  Parliament. 
In  the  islands  was  an  ominous  state  of  cruel  and 


142  ADDRESS. 

licentious  society ;  every  house  had  a  dungeon  at 
tached  to  it ;  every  slave  was  worked  by  the  whip. 
There  is  no  end  to  the  tragic  anecdotes  in  the  mu 
nicipal  records  of  the  colonies.  The  boy  was  set  to 
strip  and  to  flog  his  own  mother  to  blood,  for  a 
small  offence.  Looking  in  the  face  of  his  master 
by  the  negro  was  held  to  be  violence  by  the  island 
courts.  He  was  worked  sixteen  hours,  and  his  ra 
tion  by  law,  in  some  islands,  was  a  pint  of  flour 
and  one  salt  herring  a  day.  He  suffered  insult, 
stripes,  mutilation,  at  the  humor  of  the  master: 
iron  collars  were  riveted  on  their  necks  with  iron 
prongs  ten  inches  long ;  capsicum  pepper  was 
rubbed  in  the  eyes  of  the  females  ;  and  they  were 
done  to  death  with  the  most  shocking  levity  between 
the  master  and  manager,  without  fine  or  inquiry. 
And  when,  at  last,  some  Quakers,  Moravians,  and 
Wesleyan  and  Baptist  missionaries,  following  in 
the  steps  of  Carey  and  Ward  in  the  East  Indies, 
had  been  moved  to  come  and  cheer  the  poor  victim 
with  the  hope  of  some  reparation,  in  a  future  world, 
of  the  wrongs  he  suffered  in  this,  these  missionaries 
were  persecuted  by  the  planters,  their  lives  threat 
ened,  their  chapels  burned,  and  the  negroes 
furiously  forbidden  to  go  near  them.  These  out 
rages  rekindled  the  flame  of  British  indignation. 
Petitions  poured  into  Parliament :  a  million  per 
sons  signed  their  names  to  these  ;  and  in  1833,  on 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  143 

the  14th  May,  Lord  Stanley,  minister  of  the  col 
onies,  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  his 
bill  for  the  Emancipation. 

The  scheme  of  the  minister,  with  such  modifica 
tion  as  it  received  in  the  legislature,  proposed  grad 
ual  emancipation;  that,  on  1st  August,  1834,  all 
persons  now  slaves  should  be  entitled  to  be  regis 
tered  as  apprenticed  laborers,  and  to  acquire 
thereby  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  freemen, 
subject  to  the  restriction  of  laboring  under  certain 
conditions.  These  conditions  were,  that  the  prse- 
dials  should  owe  three  fourths  of  the  profits  of  their 
labor  to  their  masters  for  six  years,  and  the  11011- 
prsedials  for  four  years.  The  other  fourth  of  the 
apprentice's  time  was  to  be  his  own,  which  he 
might  sell  to  his  master,  or  to  other  persons  ;  and 
at  the  end  of  the  term  of  years  fixed,  he  should  be 
free. 

With  these  provisions  and  conditions,  the  bill 
proceeds,  in  the  twelfth  section,  in  the  following 
terms  :  "  Be  it  enacted,  that  all  and  every  person 
who,  on  the  1st  August,  1834,  shall  be  holden  in 
slavery  within  any  such  British  colony  as  aforesaid, 
shall  upon  and  from  and  after  the  said  1st  August, 
become  and  be  to  all  intents  and  purposes  free,  and 
discharged  of  and  from  all  manner  of  slavery,  and 
shall  be  absolutely  and  forever  manumitted ;  and 
that  the  children  thereafter  born  to  any  such  per- 


144  ADDRESS. 

sons,  and  the  offspring  of  such  children,  shall,  in 
like  manner,  be  free,  from  their  birth  ;  and  that 
from  and  after  the  1st  August,  1834,  slavery  shall 
be  and  is  hereby  utterly  and  forever  abolished  and 
declared  unlawful  throughout  the  British  colonies, 
plantations,  and  possessions  abroad." 

The  ministers,  having  estimated  the  slave  pro 
ducts  of  the  colonies  in  annual  exports  of  sugar,  rum 
and  coffee,  at  £1,500,000  per  annum,  estimated 
the  total  value  of  the  slave-property  at  30,000,000 
pounds  sterling,  and  proposed  to  give  the  planters, 
as  a  compensation  for  so  much  of  the  slaves'  time 
as  the  act  took  from  them,  20,000,000  pounds  ster 
ling,  to  be  divided  into  nineteen  shares  for  the  nine 
teen  colonies,  and  to  be  distributed  to  the  owners 
of  slaves  by  commissioners,  whose  appointment  and 
duties  were  regulated  by  the  Act.  After  much  de 
bate,  the  bill  passed  by  large  majorities.  The  ap 
prenticeship  system  is  understood  to  have  proceeded 
from  Lord  Brougham,  and  was  by  him  urged  on 
his  colleagues,  who,  it  is  said,  were  inclined  to  the 
policy  of  immediate  emancipation. 

The  colonial  legislatures  received  the  act  of  Par 
liament  with  various  degrees  of  displeasure,  and, 
of  course,  every  provision  of  the  bill  was  criticised 
with  severity.  The  new  relation  between  the  mas 
ter  and  the  apprentice,  it  was  feared,  would  be  mis 
chievous  ;  for  the  bill  required  the  appointment  of 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  145 

magistrates  who  should  hear  every  complaint  of 
the  apprentice  and  see  that  justice  was  done  him. 
It  was  feared  that  the  interest  of  the  master  and 
servant  would  now  produce  perpetual  discord  be 
tween  them.  In  the  island  of  Antigua,  containing 
37,000  people,  30,000  being  negroes,  these  objec 
tions  had  such  weight,  that  the  legislature  rejected 
the  apprenticeship  system,  and  adopted  absolute 
emancipation.  In  the  other  islands  the  system  of 
the  ministry  was  accepted. 

The  reception  of  it  by  the  negro  population  was 
equal  in  nobleness  to  the  deed.  The  negroes  were 
called  together  by  the  missionaries  and  by  the  plant 
ers,  and  the  news  explained  to  them.  On  the 
night  of  the  31st  July,  they  met  everywhere  at  their 
churches  and  chapels,  and  at  midnight,  when  the 
clock  struck  twelve,  on  their  knees,  the  silent,  weep 
ing  assembly  became  men ;  they  rose  and  embraced 
each  other  ;  they  cried,  they  sung,  they  prayed, 
they  were  wild  with  joy,  but  there  was  no  riot,  no 
feasting.  1  have  never  read  anything  in  history 
more  touching  than  the  moderation  of  the  negroes. 
Some  American  captains  left  the  shore  and  put  to 
sea,  anticipating  insurrection  and  general  murder. 
With  far  different  thoughts,  the  negroes  spent  the 
hour  in  their  huts  and  chapels.  I  will  not  repeat 
to  you  the  well-known  paragraph,  in  which  Messrs. 
Thome  and  Kimball,  the  commissioners  sent  out  in 

VOL.    XI.  10 


146  ADDRESS. 

the  year  1837  by  the  American  Anti-slavery  Society, 
describe  the  occurrences  of  that  night  in  the  island 
of  Antigua.  It  has  been  quoted  in  every  news 
paper,  and  Dr.  Charming  has  given  it  additional 
fame.  But  I  must  be  indulged  in  quoting  a  few 
sentences  from  the  pages  that  follow  it,  narrating 
the  behavior  of  the  emancipated  people  on  the 
next  day.1 

"  The  first  of  August  came  on  Friday,  and  a 
release  was  proclaimed  from  all  work  until  the  next 
Monday.  The  day  was  chiefly  spent  by  the  great 
mass  of  the  negroes  in  the  churches  and  chapels. 
The  clergy  and  missionaries  throughout  the  island 
were  actively  engaged,  seizing  the  opportunity  to 
enlighten  the  people  on  all  the  duties  and  responsi 
bilities  of  their  new  relation,  and  urging  them  to 
the  attainment  of  that  higher  liberty  with  which 
Christ  maketli  his  children  free.  In  every  quarter, 
we  were  assured,  the  day  was  like  a  Sabbath. 
Work  had  ceased.  The  hum  of  business  was  still : 
tranquillity  pervaded  the  towns  and  country.  The 
planters  informed  us,  that  they  went  to  the  chapels 
where  their  own  people  were  assembled,  greeted 
them,  shook  hands  with  them,  and  exchanged  the 

1  Emancipation  in  the  West  Indies:  A  Six  Months'  Tour 
in  Antigua,  Barbadoes,  and  Jamaica,  in  the  year  1837.  By 
J.  A.  Thome  and  J.  H.  Kimball.  New  York,  1838.  Pp. 
146,  147. 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  147 

most  hearty  good  wishes.  At  Grace  Hill,  there 
were  at  least  a  thousand  persons  around  the  Mora 
vian  Chapel  who  could  not  get  in.  For  once  the 
house  of  God  suffered  violence,  and  the  violent 
took  it  by  force.  At  Grace  Bay,  the  people,  all 
dressed  in  white,  formed  a  procession,  and  walked 
arm  in  arm  into  the  chapel.  We  were  told  that 
the  dress  of  the  negroes  on  that  occasion  was  un 
commonly  simple  and  modest.  There  was  not  the 
least  disposition  to  gayety.  Throughout  the  island, 
there  was  not  a  single  dance  known  of,  either  day 
or  night,  nor  so  much  as  a  fiddle  played." 

On  the  next  Monday  morning,  with  very  few  ex 
ceptions,  every  negro  on  every  plantation  was  in 
the  field  at  his  work.  In  some  places,  they  waited 
to  see  their  master,  to  know  what  bargain  he  would 
make ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  throughout  the  isl 
ands,  nothing  painful  occurred.  In  June,  1835, 
the  ministers,  Lord  Aberdeen  and  Sir  George  Grey, 
declared  to  the  Parliament  that  the  system  worked 
well ;  that  now  for  ten  months,  from  1st  August, 
1834,  no  injury  or  violence  had  been  offered  to  any 
white,  and  only  one  black  had  been  hurt  in  800,000 
negroes :  and,  contrary  to  many  sinister  predictions, 
that  the  new  crop  of  island  produce  would  not  fall 
short  of  that  of  the  last  year. 

But  the  habit  of  oppression  was  not  destroyed 
by  a  law  and  a  day  of  jubilee.  It  soon  appeared 


148  ADDRESS. 

in  all  the  islands  that  the  planters  were  disposed  to 
use  their  old  privileges,  and  overwork  the  appren 
tices  ;  to  take  from  them,  under  various  pretences, 
their  fourth  part  of  their  time ;  and  to  exert  the 
same  licentious  despotism  as  before.  The  negroes 
complained  to  the  magistrates  and  to  the  gov 
ernor.  In  the  island  of  Jamaica,  this  ill  blood  con 
tinually  grew  worse.  The  governors,  Lord  Bel- 
more,  the  Earl  of  Sligo,  and  afterwards  Sir  Lionel 
Smith  (a  governor  of  their  own  class,  who  had  been 
sent  out  to  gratify  the  planters,)  threw  themselves 
on  the  side  of  the  oppressed,  and  were  at  constant 
quarrel  with  the  angry  and  bilious  island  legisla 
ture.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  ill  humor  and  sulk- 
mess  of  the  addresses  of  this  assembly. 

I  may  here  express  a  general  remark,  which  the 
history  of  slavery  seems  to  justify,  that  it  is  not 
founded  solely  on  the  avarice  of  the  planter.  We 
sometimes  say,  the  planter  does  not  want  slaves, 
he  only  wants  the  immunities  and  the  luxuries 
which  the  slaves  yield  him ;  give  him  money,  give 
him  a  machine  that  will  yield  him  as  much  money 
as  the  slaves,  and  he  will  thankfully  let  them  go. 
He  has  no  love  of  slavery,  he  wants  luxury,  and  he 
will  pay  even  this  price  of  crime  and  danger  for  it. 
But  I  think  experience  does  not  warrant  this  favor 
able  distinction,  but  shows  the  existence,  beside  the 
covetousness,  of  a  bitterer  element,  the  love  of 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  149 

power,  the  voluptuousness  of  holding  a  human  be 
ing  in  his  absolute  control.  We  sometimes  observe 
that  spoiled  children  contract  a  habit  of  annoying 
quite  wantonly  those  who  have  charge  of  them,  and 
seem  to  measure  their  own  sense  of  well-being,  not 
by  what  they  do,  but  by  the  degree  of  reaction  they 
can  cause.  It  is  vain  to  get  rid  of  them  by  not 
minding  them  :  if  purring  and  humming  is  not  no 
ticed,  they  squeal  and  screech  ;  then  if  you  chide 
and  console  them,  they  find  the  experiment  suc 
ceeds,  and  they  begin  again.  The  child  will  sit  in 
your  arms  contented,  provided  you  do  nothing.  If 
you  take  a  book  and  read,  he  commences  hostile 
operations.  The  planter  is  the  spoiled  child  of  his 
unnatural  habits,  and  has  contracted  in  his  indolent 
and  luxurious  climate  the  need  of  excitement  by 
irritating  and  tormenting  his  slave. 

Sir  Lionel  Smith  defended  the  poor  negro  girls, 
prey  to  the  licentiousness  of  the  planters ;  they 
shall  not  be  whipped  with  tamarind  rods  if  they  do 
not  comply  with  tneir  master's  will ;  he  defended 
the  negro  women  ;  they  should  not  be  made  to  dig 
the  cane-holes,  (which  is  the  very  hardest  of  the 
field-work ;)  he  defended  the  Baptist  preachers  and 
the  stipendiary  magistrates,  who  are  the  negroes' 
friends,  from  the  power  of  the  planter.  The  power 
of  the  planters  however,  to  oppress,  was  greater 
than  the  power  of  the  apprentice  and  of  his  guard- 


150  ADDRESS. 

ians  to  withstand.  Lord  Brougham  and  Mr.  Bux- 
ton  declared  that  the  planter  had  not  fulfilled  his 
part  in  the  contract,  whilst  the  apprentices  had  ful 
filled  theirs ;  and  demanded  that  the  emancipation 
should  be  hastened,  and  the  apprenticeship  abol 
ished.  Parliament  was  compelled  to  pass  additional 
laws  for  the  defence  and  security  of  the  negro,  and 
in  ill  humor  at  these  acts,  the  great  island  of  Ja 
maica,  with  a  population  of  half  a  million,  and 
300,000  negroes,  early  in  1838,  resolved  to  throw  up 
the  two  remaining  years  of  apprenticeship,  and  to 
emancipate  absolutely  on  the  1st  August,  1838.  In 
British  Guiana,  in  Dominica,  the  same  resolution 
had  been  earlier  taken  with  more  good  will ;  and 
the  other  islands  fell  into  the  measure  ;  so  that  on 
the  1st  August,  1838,  the  shackles  dropped  from 
every  British  slave.  The  accounts  which  we  have 
from  all  parties,  both  from  the  planters  (and  those 
too  who  were  originally  most  opposed  to  the  meas 
ure),  and  from  the  new  freemen,  are  of  the  most 
satisfactory  kind.  The  manner  in  which  the  new 
festival  was  celebrated,  brings  tears  to  the  eyes. 
The  First  of  August,  1838,  was  observed  in  Ja 
maica  as  a  day  of  thanksgiving  and  prayer.  Sir 
Lionel  Smith,  the  governor,  writes  to  the  British 
Ministry,  "  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  do  justice  to 
the  good  order,  decorum  and  gratitude  which  the 
whole  laboring  population  manifested  on  that  happy 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  151 

occasion.  Though  joy  beamed  on  every  counte 
nance,  it  was  throughout  tempered  with  solemn 
thankfulness  to  God,  and  the  churches  and  chapels 
were  everywhere  filled  with  these  happy  people  in 
humble  offering  of  praise." 

The  Queen,  in  her  speech  to  the  Lords  and  Com 
mons,  praised  the  conduct  of  the  emancipated  pop 
ulation  :  and  in  1840  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe,  the 
new  governor  of  Jamaica,  in  his  address  to  the 
Assembly  expressed  himself  to  that  late  exasper 
ated  body  in  these  terms  :  "  All  those  who  are  ac 
quainted  with  the  state  of  the  island  know  that  our 
emancipated  population  are  as  free,  as  independent 
in  their  conduct,  as  well-conditioned,  as  much  in  the 
enjoyment  of  abundance,  and  as  strongly  sensible 
of  the  blessings  of  liberty,  as  any  that  we  know  of 
in  any  country.  All  disqualifications  and  distinc 
tions  of  color  have  ceased ;  men  of  all  colors  have 
equal  rights  in  law,  and  an  equal  footing  in  society, 
and  every  man's  position  is  settled  by  the  same  cir 
cumstances  which  regulate  that  point  in  other  free 
countries,  where  no  difference  of  color  exists.  It 
may  be  asserted,  without  fear  of  denial,  that  the 
former  slaves  of  Jamaica  are  now  as  secure  in  all 
social  rights,  as  freeborn  Britons."  He  further 
describes  the  erection  of  numerous  churches,  chap 
els  and  schools  which  the  new  population  required, 
and  adds  that  more  are  still  demanded.  The  legis- 


152  ADDRESS. 

lature,  in  their  reply,  echo  the  governor's  statement, 
and  say,  "  The  peaceful  demeanor  of  the  emanci 
pated  population  redounds  to  their  own  credit,  and 
affords  a  proof  of  their  continued  comfort  and  pros 
perity." 

I  said,  this  event  is  signal  in  the  history  of  civil 
ization.  There  are  many  styles  of  civilization,  and 
not  one  only.  Ours  is  full  of  barbarities.  There 
are  many  faculties  in  man,  each  of  which  takes  its 
turn  of  activity,  and  that  faculty  which  is  para 
mount  in  any  period  and  exerts  itself  through  the 
strongest  nation,  determines  the  civility  of  that 
age :  and  each  age  thinks  its  own  the  perfection  of 
reason.  Our  culture  is  very  cheap  and  intelligible. 
Unroof  any  house,  and  you  shall  find  it.  The  well- 
being  consists  in  having  a  sufficiency  of  coffee  and 
toast,  with  a  daily  newspaper ;  a  well  glazed  par 
lor,  with  marbles,  mirrors  and  centre-table ;  and 
the  excitement  of  a  few  parties  and  a  few  rides  in 
a  year.  Such  as  one  house,  such  are  all.  The 
owner  of  a  New  York  manor  imitates  the  mansion 
and  equipage  of  the  London  nobleman ;  the  Bos 
ton  merchant  rivals  his  brother  of  New  York ; 
and  the  villages  copy  Boston.  There  have  been 
nations  elevated  by  great  sentiments.  Such  was 
the  civility  of  Sparta  and  the  Dorian  race,  whilst 
it  was  defective  in  some  of  the  chief  elements  of 
ours.  That  of  Athens,  again,  lay  in  an  intellect 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  153 

dedicated  to  beauty.  That  of  Asia  Minor  in  po 
etry,  music  and  arts ;  that  of  Palestine  in  piety ; 
that  of  Kome  in  military  arts  and  virtues,  exalted 
by  a  prodigious  magnanimity ;  that  of  China  and 
Japan  in  the  last  exaggeration  of  decorum  and 
etiquette.  Our  civility,  England  determines  the 
style  of,  inasmuch  as  England  is  the  strongest  of 
the  family  of  existing  nations,  and  as  we  are  the 
expansion  of  that  people.  It  is  that  of  a  trading 
nation  ;  it  is  a  shopkeeping  civility.  The  English 
lord  is  a  retired  shopkeeper,  and  has  the  prejudices 
and  timidities  of  that  profession.  And  we  are 
shopkeepers,  and  have  acquired  the  vices  and  vir 
tues  that  belong  to  trade.  We  peddle,  we  truck, 
we  sail,  we  row,  we  ride  in  cars,  we  creep  in  teams, 
we  go  in  canals,  —  to  market,  and  for  the  sale  of 
goods.  The  national  aim  and  employment  streams 
into  our  ways  of  thinking,  our  laws,  our  habits  and 
our  manners.  The  customer  is  the  immediate  jewel 
of  our  souls.  Him  we  flatter,  him  we  feast,  com 
pliment,  vote  for,  and  will  not  contradict.  It  was, 
or  it  seemed  the  dictate  of  trade,  to  keep  the  negro 
down.  We  had  found  a  race  who  were  less  war 
like,  and  less  energetic  shopkeepers  than  we ;  who 
had  very  little  skill  in  trade.  We  found  it  very 
convenient  to  keep  them  at  work,  since,  by  the  aid 
of  a  little  whipping,  we  could  get  their  work  for 
nothing  but  their  board  and  the  cost  of  whips. 


154  ADDRESS. 

What  if  it  cost  a  few  unpleasant  scenes  on  the 
coast  of  Africa  ?  That  was  a  great  way  off  ;  and 
the  scenes  could  be  endured  by  some  sturdy,  un 
scrupulous  fellows,  who  could  go,  for  high  wages, 
and  bring  us  the  men,  and  need  not  trouble  our 
ears  with  the  disagreeable  particulars.  If  any 
mention  was  made  of  homicide,  madness,  adultery, 
and  intolerable  tortures,  we  would  let  the  church- 
bells  ring  louder,  the  church-organ  swell  its  peal 
and  drown  the  hideous  sound.  The  sugar  they 
raised  was  excellent:  nobody  tasted  blood  in  it. 
The  coffee  was  fragrant ;  the  tobacco  was  incense ; 
the  brandy  made  nations  happy  ;  the  cotton  clothed 
the  world.  What!  all  raised  by  these  men,  and 
no  wages  ?  Excellent !  What  a  convenience ! 
They  seemed  created  by  Providence  to  bear  the 
heat  and  the  whipping,  and  make  these  fine  ar 
ticles. 

But  unhappily,  most  unhappily,  gentlemen,  man 
is  born  with  intellect,  as  well  as  with  a  love  of 
sugar ;  and  with  a  sense  of  justice,  as  well  as  a 
taste  for  strong  drink.  These  ripened,  as  well  as 
those.  You  could  not  educate  him,  you  could  not 
get  any  poetry,  any  wisdom,  any  beauty  in  woman, 
any  strong  and  commanding  character  in  man,  but 
these  absurdities  would  still  come  flashing  out,  — 
these  absurdities  of  a  demand  for  justice,  a  generos 
ity  for  the  weak  and  oppressed.  Unhappily  too  for 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  155 

the  planter,  the  laws  of  nature  are  in  harmony  with 
each  other  :  that  which  the  head  and  the  heart  de 
mand,  is  found  to  be,  in  the  long  run,  for  what  the 
grossest  calculator  calls  his  advantage.  The  moral 
sense  is  always  supported  by  the  permanent  interest 
of  the  parties.  Else,  I  know  not  how,  in  our  world, 
any  good  would  ever  get  done.  It  was  shown  to 
the  planters  that  they,  as  well  as  the  negroes,  were 
slaves ;  that  though  they  paid  no  wages,  they  got 
very  poor  work ;  that  their  estates  were  ruining 
them,  under  the  finest  climate  ;  and  that  they 
needed  the  severest  monopoly  laws  at  home  to  keep 
them  from  bankruptcy.  The  oppression  of  the 
slave  recoiled  on  them.  They  were  full  of  vices  ; 
their  children  were  lumps  of  pride,  sloth,  sensuality 
and  rottenness.  The  position  of  woman  was  nearly 
as  bad  as  it  could  be  ;  and,  like  other  robbers,  they 
could  not  sleep  in  security.  Many  planters  have 
said,  since  the  emancipation,  that,  before  that  day, 
they  were  the  greatest  slaves  on  the  estates.  Slav 
ery  is  no  scholar,  no  improver  ;  it  does  not  love  the 
whistle  of  the  railroad ;  it  does  not  love  the  news 
paper,  the  mailbag,  a  college,  a  book  or  a  preacher 
who  has  the  absurd  whim  of  saying  what  he  thinks ; 
it  does  not  increase  the  white  population ;  it  does 
not  improve  the  soil ;  everything  goes  to  decay. 
For  these  reasons  the  islands  proved  bad  customers 
to  England.  It  was  very  easy  for  manufacturers 


156  ADDRESS. 

less  shrewd  than  those  of  Birmingham  and  Man 
chester  to  see  that  if  the  state  of  things  in  the  isl 
ands  was  altered,  if  the  slaves  had  wages,  the  slaves 
would  be  clothed,  would  build  houses,  would  fill 
them  with  tools,  with  pottery,  with  crockery,  with 
hardware ;  and  negro  women  love  fine  clothes  as 
well  as  white  women.  In  every  naked  negro  of 
those  thousands,  they  saw  a  future  customer.  Mean 
time,  they  saw  further  that  the  slave-trade,  by  keep 
ing  in  barbarism  the  whole  coast  of  eastern  Africa, 
deprives  them  of  countries  and  nations  of  custom 
ers,  if  once  freedom  and  civility  and  European 
manners  could  get  a  foothold  there.  But  the  trade 
could  not  be  abolished  whilst  this  hungry  West 
Indian  market,  with  an  appetite  like  the  grave, 
cried,  "More,  more,  bring  me  a  hundred  a  day;  " 
they  could  not  expect  any  mitigation  in  the  mad 
ness  of  the  poor  African  war-chiefs.  These  consid 
erations  opened  the  eyes  of  the  dullest  in  Britain. 
More  than  this,  the  West  Indian  estate  was  owned 
or  mortgaged  in  England,  and  the  owner  and  the 
mortgagee  had  very  plain  intimations  that  the  feel 
ing  of  English  liberty  was  gaining  every  hour  new 
mass  and  velocity,  and  the  hostility  to  such  as  re 
sisted  it  would  be  fatal.  The  House  of  Commons 
would  destroy  the  protection  of  island  produce,  and 
interfere  in  English  politics  in  the  island  legisla 
tion  :  so  they  hastened  to  make  the  best  of  their 
position,  and  accepted  the  bill. 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  157 

These  considerations,  I  doubt  not,  had  their 
weight ;  the  interest  of  trade,  the  interest  of  the 
revenue,  and,  moreover,  the  good  fame  of  the  ac 
tion.  It  was  inevitable  that  men  should  feel  these 
motives.  But  they  do  not  appear  to  have  had  an 
excessive  or  unreasonable  weight.  On  reviewing 
this  history,  I  think  the  whole  transaction  reflects 
infinite  honor  on  the  people  and  parliament  of  Eng 
land.  It  was  a  stately  spectacle,  to  see  the  cause 
of  human  rights  argued  with  so  much  patience  and 
generosity  and  with  such  a  mass  of  evidence  be 
fore  that  powerful  people.  It  is  a  creditable  inci 
dent  in  the  history  that  when,  in  1789,  the  first 
privy-council  report  of  evidence  on  the  trade  (a 
bulky  folio  embodying  all  the  facts  which  the  Lon 
don  Committee  had  been  engaged  for  years  in  col 
lecting,  and  all  the  examinations  before  the  coun 
cil)  was  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons,  a  late 
day  being  named  for  the  discussion,  in  order  to  give 
members  time,  —  Mr.  Wilberf orce,  Mr.  Pitt,  the 
prime  minister,  and  other  gentlemen,  took  advan 
tage  of  the  postponement  to  retire  into  the  country 
to  read  the  report.  For  months  and  years  the  bill 
was  debated,  with  some  consciousness  of  the  extent 
of  its  relations,  by  the  first  citizens  of  England, 
the  foremost  men  of  the  earth  ;  every  argument  was 
weighed,  every  particle  of  evidence  was  sifted  and 
laid  in  the  scale  ;  and,  at  last,  the  right  triumphed, 


158  ADDRESS. 

the  poor  man  was  vindicated,  and  the  oppressor  was 
flung  out.  I  know  that  England  has  the  advantage 
of  trying  the  question  at  a  wide  distance  from  the 
spot  where  the  nuisance  exists  :  the  planters  are  not, 
excepting  in  rare  examples,  members  of  the  legisla 
ture.  The  extent  of  the  empire,  and  the  magnitude 
and  number  of  other  questions  crowding  into  court, 
keep  this  one  in  balance,  and  prevent  it  from  ob 
taining  that  ascendency,  and  being  urged  with  that 
intemperance  which  a  question  of  property  tends  to 
acquire.  There  are  causes  in  the  composition  of 
the  British  legislature,  and  the  relation  of  its  lead 
ers  to  the  country  and  to  Europe,  which  exclude 
much  that  is  pitiful  and  injurious  in  other  legisla 
tive  assemblies.  From  these  reasons,  the  question 
was  discussed  with  a  rare  independence  and  mag 
nanimity.  It  was  not  narrowed  down  to  a  paltry 
electioneering  trap ;  and,  I  must  say,  a  delight  in 
justice,  an  honest  tenderness  for  the  poor  negro, 
for  man  suffering  these  wrongs,  combined  with  the 
national  pride,  which  refused  to  give  the  support  of 
English  soil  or  the  protection  of  the  English  flag 
to  these  disgusting  violations  of  nature. 

Forgive  me,  fellow-citizens,  if  I  own  to  you,  that 
in  the  last  few  days  that  my  attention  has  been  oc 
cupied  with  this  history,  I  have  not  been  able  to 
read  a  page  of  it  without  the  most  painful  com 
parisons.  Whilst  I  have  read  of  England,  I  have 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  159 

thought  of  New  England.  Whilst  I  have  medi 
tated  in  my  solitary  walks  on  the  magnanimity  of 
the  English  Bench  and  Senate,  reaching  out  the 
benefit  of  the  law  to  the  most  helpless  citizen  in  her 
world-wide  realm,  I  have  found  myself  oppressed 
by  other  thoughts.  As  I  have  walked  in  the  pas 
tures  and  along  the  edge  of  woods,  I  could  not  keep 
my  imagination  on  those  agreeable  figures,  for  other 
images  that  intruded  on  me.  I  could  not  see  the 
great  vision  of  the  patriots  and  senators  who  have 
adopted  the  slave's  cause :  —  they  turned  their 
backs  on  me.  No :  I  see  other  pictures,  —  of  mean 
men :  I  see  very  poor,  very  ill-clothed,  very  igno 
rant  men,  not  surrounded  by  happy  friends,  —  to 
be  plain,  —  poor  black  men  of  obscure  employment 
as  mariners,  cooks,  or  stewards,  in  ships,  yet  citi 
zens  of  this  our  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  — 
f reeborn  as  we,  —  whom  the  slave-laws  of  the  States 
of  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  Louisiana  have  ar 
rested  in  the  vessels  in  which  they  visited  those 
ports,  and  shut  up  in  jails  so  long  as  the  vessel  re 
mained  in  port,  with  the  stringent  addition,  that  if 
the  shipmaster  fails  to  pay  the  costs  of  this  official 
arrest  and  the  board  in  jail,  these  citizens  are  to  be 
sold  for  slaves,  to  pay  that  expense.  This  man, 
these  men,  I  see,  and  no  law  to  save  them.  Fellow- 
citizens,  this  crime  will  not  be  hushed  up  any  longer. 
I  have  learned  that  a  citizen  of  Nantucket,  walking 


160  ADDRESS. 

in  New  Orleans,  found  a  freeborn  citizen  of  Nan- 
tucket,  a  man,  too,  of  great  personal  worth,  and,  as 
it  happened,  very  dear  to  him,  as  having  saved  his 
own  life,  working  chained  in  the  streets  of  that 
city,  kidnapped  by  such  a  process  as  this.  In  the 
sleep  of  the  laws,  the  private  interference  of  two 
excellent  citizens  of  Boston  has,  I  have  ascertained, 
rescued  several  natives  of  this  State  from  these 
Southern  prisons.  Gentlemen,  I  thought  the  deck 
of  a  Massachusetts  ship  was  as  much  the  territory 
of  Massachusetts  as  the  floor  on  which  we  stand. 
It  should  be  as  sacred  as  the  temple  of  God.  The 
poorest  fishing  smack  that  floats  under  the  shadow 
of  an  iceberg  in  the  Northern  seas,  or  hunts  the 
whale  in  the  Southern  ocean,  should  be  encompassed 
by  her  laws  with  comfort  and  protection,  as  much 
as  within  the  arms  of  Cape  Ann  and  Cape  Cod. 
And  this  kidnapping  is  suffered  within  our  own 
land  and  federation,  whilst  the  fourth  article  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  ordains  in  terms, 
that,  "  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled 
to  all  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the 
several  States.  "  If  such  a  damnable  outrage  can 
be  committed  on  the  person  of  a  citizen  with  impu 
nity,  let  the  Governor  break  the  broad  seal  of  the 
State ;  he  bears  the  sword  in  vain.  The  Governor 
of  Massachusetts  is  a  trifler;  the  State-house  in 
Boston  is  a  play-house ;  the  General  Court  is  a  dis- 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  161 

honored  body,  if  they  make  laws  which  they  can 
not  execute.  The  great-hearted  Puritans  have  left 
no  posterity.  The  rich  men  may  walk  in  State 
Street,  but  they  walk  without  honor ;  and  the  farm 
ers  may  brag  their  democracy  in  the  country,  but 
they  are  disgraced  men.  If  the  State  has  no  power 
to  defend  its  own  people  in  its  own  shipping,  be 
cause  it  has  delegated  that  power  to  the  Federal 
Government,  has  it  no  representation  in  the  Federal 
Government?  Are  those  men  dumb?  I  am  no 
lawyer,  and  cannot  indicate  the  forms  applicable  to 
the  case,  but  here  is  something  which  transcends  all 
forms.  Let  the  senators  and  representatives  of  the 
State,  containing  a  population  of  a  million  freemen, 
go  in  a  body  before  the  Congress  and  say  that  they 
have  a  demand  to  make  on  them,  so  imperative 
that  all  functions  of  government  must  stop  until  it 
is  satisfied.  If  ordinary  legislation  cannot  reach  it, 
then  extraordinary  must  be  applied.  The  Congress 
should  instruct  the  President  to  send  to  those  ports 
of  Charleston,  Savannah  and  New  Orleans  such 
orders  and  such  force  as  should  release,  forthwith, 
all  such  citizens  of  Massachusetts  as  were  holden  in 
prison  without  the  allegation  of  any  crime,  and 
should  set  on  foot  the  strictest  inquisition  to  dis 
cover  where  such  persons,  brought  into  slavery  by 
these  local  laws  at  any  time  heretofore,  may  now  be. 
That  first ;  —  and  then,  let  order  be  taken  to  indem- 

VOL.   XI.  11 


162  ADDRESS. 

nify  all  such  as  have  been  incarcerated.  As  for 
dangers  to  the  Union,  from  such  demands  !  —  the 
Union  is  already  at  an  end  when  the  first  citizen  of 
Massachusetts  is  thus  outraged.  Is  it  an  union  and 
covenant  in  which  the  State  of  Massachusetts  agrees 
to  be  imprisoned,  and  the  State  of  Carolina  to  im 
prison  ?  Gentlemen,  I  am  loath  to  say  harsh  things, 
and  perhaps  I  know  too  little  of  politics  for  the 
smallest  weight  to  attach  to  any  censure  of  mine,  — 
but  I  am  at  a  loss  how  to  characterize  the  tameness 
and  silence  of  the  two  senators  and  the  ten  repre 
sentatives  of  the  State  at  Washington.  To  what 
purpose  have  we  clothed  each  of  those  representa 
tives  with  the  power  of  seventy  thousand  persons, 
and  each  senator  with  near  half  a  million,  if  they 
are  to  sit  dumb  at  their  desks  and  see  their  constit 
uents  captured  and  sold  ;  —  perhaps  to  gentlemen 
sitting  by  them  in  the  hall  ?  There  is  a  scandalous 
rumor  that  has  been  swelling  louder  of  late  years, 
—  perhaps  it  is  wholly  false,  —  that  members  are 
bullied  into  silence  by  Southern  gentlemen.  It  is 
so  easy  to  omit  to  speak,  or  even  to  be  absent  when 
delicate  things  are  to  be  handled.  I  may  as  well 
say  what  all  men  feel,  that  whilst  our  very  amiable 
and  very  innocent  representatives  and  senators  at 
Washington  are  accomplished  lawyers  and  mer 
chants,  and  very  eloquent  at  dinners  and  at  cau 
cuses,  there  is  a  disastrous  want  of  men  from  New 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION. 

England.  I  would  gladly  make  exceptions,  an 
you  will  not  suffer  me  to  forget  one  eloquent  old 
man.  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  Massachusetts 
rolls,  and  who  singly  has  defended  the  freedom  of 
speech,  and  the  rights  of  the  free,  against  the  usur 
pation  of  the  slave-holder.  But  the  reader  of  Con 
gressional  debates,  in  New  England,  is  perplexed 
to  see  with  what  admirable  sweetness  and  patience 
the  majority  of  the  free  States  are  schooled  and 
ridden  by  the  minority  of  slave-holders.  What  if 
we  should  send  thither  representatives  who  were  a 
particle  less  amiable  and  less  innocent  ?  I  entreat 
you,  sirs,  let  not  this  stain  attach,  let  not  this  mis 
ery  accumulate  any  longer.  If  the  managers  of 
our  political  parties  are  too  prudent  and  too  cold  ; 
—  if,  most  unhappily,  the  ambitious  class  of  young 
men  and  political  men  have  found  out  that  these 
neglected  victims  are  poor  and  without  weight ;  that 
they  have  no  graceful  hospitalities  to  offer ;  no  val 
uable  business  to  throw  into  any  man's  hands,  no 
strong  vote  to  cast  at  the  elections ;  and  therefore 
may  with  impunity  be  left  in  their  chains  or  to  the 
chance  of  chains,  —  then  let  the  citizens  in  their 
primary  capacity  take  up  their  cause  on  this  very 
ground,  and  say  to  the  government  of  the  State, 
and  of  the  Union,  that  government  exists  to  de 
fend  the  weak  and  the  poor  and  the  injured  party  ; 
the  rich  and  the  strong  can  better  take  care  of 


164  ADDRESS. 

themselves.  And  as  an  omen  and  assurance  of 
success,  I  point  you  to  the  bright  example  which 
England  set  you,  on  this  day,  ten  years  ago. 

There  are  other  comparisons  and  other  impera 
tive  duties  which  come  sadly  to  mind,  —  but  I  do 
not  wish  to  darken  the  hours  of  this  day  by  crim 
ination  ;  I  turn  gladly  to  the  rightful  theme,  to  the 
bright  aspects  of  the  occasion. 

This  event  was  a  moral  revolution.  The  history 
of  it  is  before  you.  Here  was  no  prodigy,  no  fabu 
lous  hero,  no  Trojan  horse,  no  bloody  war,  but  all 
was  achieved  by  plain  means  of  plain  men,  work 
ing  not  under  a  leader,  but  under  a  sentiment. 
Other  revolutions  have  been  the  insurrection  of  the 
oppressed ;  this  was  the  repentance  of  the  tyrant. 
It  was  the  masters  revolting  from  their  mastery. 
The  slave-holder  said,  I  will  not  hold  slaves.  The 
end  was  noble  and  the  means  were  pure.  Hence 
the  elevation  and  pathos  of  this  chapter  of  history. 
The  lives  of  the  advocates  are  pages  of  greatness, 
and  the  connection  of  the  eminent  senators  with  this 
question  constitutes  the  immortalizing  moments  of 
those  men's  lives.  The  bare  enunciation  of  the 
theses  at  which  the  lawyers  and  legislators  arrived, 
gives  a  glow  to  the  heart  of  the  reader.  Lord 
Chancellor  Northington  is  the  author  of  the  famous 
sentence,  "  As  soon  as  any  man  puts  his  foot  on 
English  ground,  he  becomes  free."  "  I  was  a  slave," 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  165 

said  the  counsel  of  Somerset,  speaking  for  his  client, 
"  for  I  was  in  America :  I  am  now  in  a  country 
where  the  common  rights  of  mankind  are  known 
and  regarded."  Granville  Sharpe  filled  the  ear  of 
the  judges  with  the  sound  principles  that  had  from 
time  to  time  been  affirmed  by  the  legal  authorities : 
"  Derived  power  cannot  be  superior  to  the  power 
from  which  it  is  derived :  "  "  The  reasonableness 
of  the  law  is  the  soul  of  the  law :  "  "  It  is  better  to 
suffer  every  evil,  than  to  consent  to  any."  Out  it 
would  come,  the  God's  truth,  out  it  came,  like  a 
bolt  from  a  cloud,  for  all  the  mumbling  of  the  law 
yers.  One  feels  very  sensibly  in  all  this  history 
that  a  great  heart  and  soul  are  behind  there,  supe 
rior  to  any  man,  and  making  use  of  each,  in  turn, 
and  infinitely  attractive  to  every  person  according 
to  the  degree  of  reason  in  his  own  mind,  so  that 
this  cause  has  had  the  power  to  draw  to  it  every 
particle  of  talent  and  of  worth  in  England,  from 
the  beginning.  All  the  great  geniuses  of  the  Brit 
ish  senate,  Fox,  Pitt,  Burke,  Grenville,  Sheridan, 
Grey,  Canning,  ranged  themselves  on  its  side  ;  the 
poet  Cowper  wrote  for  it :  Franklin,  Jefferson, 
Washington,  in  this  country,  all  recorded  their 
votes.  All  men  remember  the  subtlety  and  the 
fire  of  indignation  which  the  "Edinburgh  Review" 
contributed  to  the  cause  ;  and  every  liberal  mind, 
poet,  preacher,  moralist,  statesman,  has  had  the  for- 


166  ADDRESS. 

tune  to  appear  somewhere  for  this  cause.  On  the 
other  part,  appeared  the  reign  of  pounds  and  shil 
lings,  and  all  manner  of  rage  and  stupidity  ;  a  re 
sistance  which  drew  from  Mr.  Huddlestone  in  Par 
liament  the  observation,  "  That  a  curse  attended 
this  trade  even  in  the  mode  of  defending  it.  By  a 
certain  fatality,  none  but  the  vilest  arguments  were 
brought  forward,  which  corrupted  the  very  persons 
who  used  them.  Every  one  of  these  was  built  on 
the  narrow  ground  of  interest,  of  pecuniary  profit, 
of  sordid  gain,  in  opposition  to  every  motive  that 
had  reference  to  humanity,  justice,  and  religion, 
or  to  that  great  principle  which  comprehended  them 
all."  This  moral  force  perpetually  reinforces  and 
dignifies  the  friends  of  this  cause.  It  gave  that 
tenacity  to  their  point  which  has  insured  ultimate 
triumph ;  and  it  gave  that  superiority  in  reason,  in 
imagery,  in  eloquence,  which  makes  in  all  countries 
anti-slavery  meetings  so  attractive  to  the  people, 
and  has  made  it  a  proverb  in  Massachusetts,  that 
"  eloquence  is  dog-cheap  at  the  anti-slavery  chapel." 
I  will  say  further  that  we  are  indebted  mainly  to 
this  movement  and  to  the  continuers  of  it,  for  the 
popular  discussion  of  every  point  of  practical  eth 
ics,  and  a  reference  of  every  question  to  the  abso 
lute  standard.  It  is  notorious  that  the  political, 
religious  and  social  schemes,  with  which  the  minds 
of  men  are  now  most  occupied,  have  been  matured, 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  167 

or  at  least  broached,  in  the  free  and  daring  discus 
sions  of  these  assemblies.  Men  have  become  aware, 
through  the  emancipation  and  kindred  events,  of 
the  presence  of  powers  which,  in  their  days  of  dark 
ness,  they  had  overlooked.  Virtuous  men  will  not 
again  rely  on  political  agents.  They  have  found 
out  the  deleterious  effect  of  political  association. 
Up  to  this  day  we  have  allowed  to  statesmen  a  par 
amount  social  standing,  and  we  bow  low  to  them  as 
to  the  great.  We  cannot  extend  this  deference 
to  then!  any  longer.  The  secret  cannot  be  kept, 
that  the  seats  of  power  are  filled  by  underlings,  ig 
norant,  timid  and  selfish  to  a  degree  to  destroy  all 
claim,  excepting  that  on  compassion,  to  the  society 
of  the  just  and  generous.  What  happened  notori 
ously  to  an  American  ambassador  in  England,  that 
he  found  himself  compelled  to  palter  and  to  dis 
guise  the  fact  that  he  was  a  slave-breeder,  happens 
to  men  of  state.  Their  vocation  is  a  presumption 
against  them  among  well-meaning  people.  The 
superstition  respecting  power  and  office  is  going  to 
the  ground.  The  stream  of  human  affairs  flows  its 
own  way,  and  is  very  little  affected  by  the  activity 
of  legislators.  What  great  masses  of  men  wish 
done,  will  be  done ;  and  they  do  not  wish  it  for  a 
freak,  but  because  it  is  their  state  and  natural  end. 
There  are  now  other  energies  than  force,  other 
than  political,  which  no  man  in  future  can  allow 


168  ADDRESS. 

himself  to  disregard.  There  is  direct  conversation 
and  influence.  A  man  is  to  make  himself  felt  by 
his  proper  force.  The  tendency  of  things  runs 
steadily  to  this  point,  namely,  to  put  every  man  011 
his  merits,  and  to  give  him  so  much  power  as  he 
naturally  exerts,  —  no  more,  no  less.  Of  course, 
the  timid  and  base  persons,  all  who  are  conscious 
of  no  worth  in  themselves,  and  who  owe  all  their 
place  to  the  opportunities  which  the  old  order  of 
things  allowed  them,  to  deceive  and  defraud  men, 
shudder  at  the  change,  and  would  fain  silence  every 
honest  voice,  and  lock  up  every  house  where  liberty 
and  innovation  can  be  pleaded  for.  They  would 
raise  mobs,  for  fear  is  very  cruel.  But  the  strong 
and  healthy  yeomen  and  husbands  of  the  land,  the 
self-sustaining  class  of  inventive  and  industrious 
men,  fear  no  competition  or  superiority.  Come 
what  will,  their  faculty  cannot  be  spared. 

The  First  of  August  marks  the  entrance  of  a 
new  element  into  modern  politics,  namely,  the  civ 
ilization  of  the  negro.  A  man  is  added  to  the  hu 
man  family.  Not  the  least  affecting  part  of  this 
history  of  abolition  is  the  annihilation  of  the  old 
indecent  nonsense  about  the  nature  of  the  negro. 
In  the  case  of  the  ship  Zong,  in  1781,  whose  mas 
ter  had  thrown  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  slaves 
alive  into  the  sea,  to  cheat  the  underwriters,  the 
first  jury  gave  a  verdict  in  favor  of  the  master  and 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  169 

owners :  they  had  a  right  to  do  what  they  had 
done.  Lord  Mansfield  is  reported  to  have  said  on 
the  bench,  "  The  matter  left  to  the  jury  is,  —  Was 
it  from  necessity  ?  For  they  had  no  doubt,  — 
though  it  shocks  one  very  much,  —  that  the  case  of 
slaves  was  the  same  as  .if  horses  had  been  thrown 
overboard.  It  is  a  very  shocking  case."  But  a 
more  enlightened  and  humane  opinion  began  to 
prevail.  Mr.  Clarkson,  early  in  his  career,  made  a 
collection  of  African  productions  and  manufactures, 
as  specimens  of  the  arts  and  culture  of  the  negro ; 
comprising  cloths  and  loom,  weapons,  polished 
stones  and  woods,  leather,  glass,  dyes,  ornaments, 
soap,  pipe-bowls  and  trinkets.  These  he  showed 
to  Mr.  Pitt,  who  saw  and  handled  them  with  ex 
treme  interest.  "  On  sight  of  these,"  says  Clark- 
son,  "  many  sublime  thoughts  seemed  to  rush  at 
once  into  his  mind,  some  of  which  he  expressed  ;  " 
and  hence  appeared  to  arise  a  project  which  was 
always  dear  to  him,  of  the  civilization  of  Africa,  — 
a  dream  which  forever  elevates  his  fame.  In  1791, 
Mr.  Wilberforce  announced  to  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  "  We  have  already  gained  one  victory :  we 
have  obtained  for  these  poor  creatures  the  recogni 
tion  of  their  human  nature,  which  for  a  time  was 
most  shamefully  denied  them."  It  was  the  sar 
casm  of  Montesquieu,  "  it  would  not  do  to  suppose 
that  negroes  were  men,  lest  it  should  turn  out  that 


170  ADDRESS. 

whites  were  not ;  "  for  the  white  has,  for  ages,  done 
what  he  could  to  keep  the  negro  in  that  hoggish 
state.  His  laws  have  been  furies.  It  now  appears 
that  the  negro  race  is,  more  than  any  other,  sus 
ceptible  of  rapid  civilization.  The  emancipation  is 
observed,  in  the  islands,  to  have  wrought  for  the 
negro  a  benefit  as  sudden  as  when  a  thermometer 
is  brought  out  of  the  shade  into  the  sun.  It  has 
given  him  eyes  and  ears.  If,  before,  he  was  taxed 
with  such  stupidity,  or  such  defective  vision,  that 
he  could  not  set  a  table  square  to  the  walls  of  an 
apartment,  he  is  now  the  principal  if  not  the  only 
mechanic  in  the  West  Indies  ;  and  is,  besides,  an 
architect,  a  physician,  a  lawyer,  a  magistrate,  an 
editor,  and  a  valued  and  increasing  political  power. 
The  recent  testimonies  of  Sturge,  of  Thome  and 
Kimball,  of  Gurney,  of  Philippe,  are  very  explicit 
on  this  point,  the  capacity  and  the  success  of  the 
colored  and  the  black  population  in  employments 
of  skill,  of  profit  and  of  trust ;  and  best  of  all  is 
the  testimony  to  their  moderation.  They  receive, 
hints  and  advances  from  the  whites  that  they  will 
be  gladly  received  as  subscribers  to  the  Exchange, 
as  members  of  this  or  that  committee  of  trust. 
They  hold  back,  and  say  to  each  other  that  "  so 
cial  position  is  not  to  be  gained  by  pushing." 

I  have  said  that  this  event  interests  us  because 
it  came  mainly  from  the  concession  of  the  whites  ; 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  171 

I  add,  that  in  part  it  is  the  earning  of  the  blacks. 
They  won  the  pity  and  respect  which  they  have 
received,  by  their  powers  and  native  endowments. 
I  think  this  a  circumstance  of  the  highest  import. 
Their  whole  future  is  in  it.  Our  planet,  before  the 
age  of  written  history,  had  its  races  of  savages, 
like  the  generations  of  sour  paste,  or  the  animal 
cules  that  wriggle  and  bite  in  a  drop  of  putrid 
water.  Who  cares  for  these  or  for  their  wars  ? 
We  do  not  wish  a  world  of  bugs  or  of  birds  ;  nei 
ther  afterward  of  Scythians,  Caraibs  or  Feejees. 
The  grand  style  of  nature,  her  great  periods,  is  all 
we  observe  in  them.  Who  cares  for  oppressing 
whites,  or  oppressed  blacks,  twenty  centuries  ago, 
more  than  for  bad  dreams  ?  Eaters  and  food  are 
in  the  harmony  of  nature  ;  and  there  too  is  the 
germ  forever  protected,  unfolding  gigantic  leaf 
after  leaf,  a  newer  flower,  a  richer  fruit,  in  every 
period,  yet  its  next  product  is  never  to  be  guessed. 
It  will  only  save  what  is  worth  saving  ;  and  it  saves 
not  by  compassion,  but  by  power.  It  appoints  no 
police  to  guard  the  lion,  but  his  teeth  and  claws ; 
no  fort  or  city  for  the  bird,  but  his  wings ;  no  res 
cue  for  flies  and  mites,  but  their  spawning  num 
bers,  which  no  ravages  can  overcome.  It  deals 
with  men  after  the  same  manner.  If  they  are  rude 
and  foolish,  down  they  must  go.  When  at  last  in 
a  race,  a  new  principle  appears,  an  idea,  —  that 


172  ADDRESS. 

conserves  it ;  ideas  only  save  races.  If  the  black 
man  is  feeble  and  not  important  to  the  existing 
races,  not  on  a  parity  with  the  best  race,  the  black 
man  must  serve,  and  be  exterminated.  But  if  the 
black  man  carries  in  his  bosom  an  indispensable 
element  of  a  new  and  coming  civilization ;  for  the 
sake  of  that  element,  no  wrong,  nor  strength  nor 
circumstance  can  hurt  him :  he  will  survive  and 
play  his  part.  So  now,  the  arrival  in  the  world  of 
such  men  as  Toussaint,  and  the  Haytian  heroes,  or 
of  the  leaders  of  their  race  in  Barbadoes  and  Ja 
maica,  outweighs  in  good  omen  all  the  English  and 
American  humanity.  The  anti-slavery  of  the  whole 
world  is  dust  in  the  balance  before  this,  —  is  a  poor 
squeamishness  and  nervousness :  the  might  and  the 
right  are  here :  here  is  the  anti-slave  :  here  is  man  : 
and  if  you  have  man,  black  or  white  is  an  insignifi 
cance.  The  intellect,  —  that  is  miraculous !  Who 
has  it,  has  the  talisman :  his  skin  and  bones,  though 
they  were  of  the  color  of  night,  are  transparent, 
and  the  everlasting  stars  shine  through,  with  at 
tractive  beams.  But  a  compassion  for  that  which 
is  not  and  cannot  be  useful  or  lovely,  is  degrading 
and  futile.  All  the  songs  and  newspapers  and 
money-subscriptions  and  vituperation  of  such  as  do 
not  think  with  us,  will  avail  nothing  against  a  fact. 
I  say  to  you,  you  must  save  yourself,  black  or 
white,  man  or  woman ;  other  help  is  none.  I  es- 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  173 

teem  the  occasion  of  this  jubilee  to  be  the  proud 
discovery  that  the  black  race  can  contend  with  the 
white ;  that,  in  the  great  anthem  which  we  call  his 
tory,  a  piece  of  many  parts  and  vast  compass,  after 
playing  a  long  time  a  very  low  and  subdued  accom 
paniment,  they  perceive  the  time  arrived  when  they 
can  strike  in  with  effect  and  take  a  master's  part 
in  the  music.  The  civility  of  the  world  has  reached 
that  pitch  that  their  more  moral  genius  is  becoming 
indispensable,  and  the  quality  of  this  race  is  to  be 
honored  for  itself.  For  this,  they  have  been  pre 
served  in  sandy  deserts,  in  rice-swamps,  in  kitch 
ens  and  shoe-shops,  so  long :  now  let  them  emerge, 
clothed  and  in  their  own  form. 

There  remains  the  very  elevated  consideration 
which  the  subject  opens,  but  which  belongs  to  more 
abstract  views  than  we  are  now  taking,  this  namely, 
that  the  civility  of  no  race  can  be  perfect  whilst 
another  race  is  degraded.  It  is  a  doctrine  alike  of 
the  oldest  and  of  the  newest  philosophy,  that  man 
is  one,  and  that  you  cannot  injure  any  member, 
without  a  sympathetic  injury  to  all  the  members. 
America  is  not  civil,  whilst  Africa  is  barbarous. 

These  considerations  seem  to  leave  no  choice  for 
the  action  of  the  intellect  and  the  conscience  of  the 
country.  There  have  been  moments  in  this,  as 
well  as  in  every  piece  of  moral  history,  when  there 
seemed  room  for  the  infusions  of  a  skeptical  phi- 


174  ADDRESS. 

losophy ;  when  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  brute 
force  would  not  triumph  in  the  eternal  struggle.  I 
doubt  not  that  sometimes,  a  despairing  negro,  when 
jumping  over  the  ship's  sides  to  escape  from  the 
white  devils  who  surrounded  him,  has  believed 
there  was  no  vindication  of  right ;  it  is  horrible  to 
think  of,  but  it  seemed  so.  I  doubt  not  that  some 
times  the  negro's  friend,  in  the  face  of  scornful 
and  brutal  hundreds  of  traders  and  drivers,  has 
felt  his  heart  sink.  Especially,  it  seems  to  me, 
some  degree  of  despondency  is  pardonable,  when 
he  observes  the  men  of  conscience  and  of  intellect, 
his  own  natural  allies  and  champions,  —  those 
whose  attention  should  be  nailed  to  the  grand  ob 
jects  of  this  cause,  so  hotly  offended  by  whatever 
incidental  petulances  or  infirmities  of  indiscreet 
defenders  of  the  negro,  as  to  permit  themselves  to 
be  ranged  with  the  enemies  of  the  human  race  ; 
and  names  which  should  be  the  alarums  of  liberty 
and  the  watchwords  of  truth,  are  mixed  up  with  all 
the  rotten  rabble  of  selfishness  and  tyranny.  I 
assure  myself  that  this  coldness  and  blindness  will 
pass  away.  A  single  noble  wind  of  sentiment  will 
scatter  them  forever.  I  am  sure  that  the  good  and 
wise  elders,  the  ardent  and  generous  youth,  will  not 
permit  what  is  incidental  and  exceptional  to  with 
draw  their  devotion  from  the  essential  and  perma 
nent  characters  of  the  question.  There  have  been 


WEST  INDIA  EMANCIPATION.  175 

moments,  I  said,  when  men  might  be  forgiven  who 
doubted.  Those  moments  are  past.  Seen  in  masses, 
it  cannot  be  disputed,  there  is  progress  in  human 
society.  There  is  a  blessed  necessity  by  which  the 
interest  of  men  is  always  driving  them  to  the  right ; 
and,  again,  making  all  crime  mean  and  ugly.  The 
genius  of  the  Saxon  race,  friendly  to  liberty ;  the 
enterprise,  the  very  muscular  vigor  of  this  nation, 
are  inconsistent  with  slavery.  The  Intellect,  with 
blazing  eye,  looking  through  history  from  the  be 
ginning  onward,  gazes  on  this  blot  and  it  disap 
pears.  The  sentiment  of  Eight,  once  very  low  and 
indistinct,  but  ever  more  articulate,  because  it  is  the 
voice  of  the  universe,  pronounces  Freedom.  The 
Power  that  built  this  fabric  of  things  affirms  it  in 
the  heart ;  and  in  the  history  of  the  First  of  Au 
gust,  has  made  a  sign  to  the  ages,  of  his  will. 


WAR. 


THE  archangel  Hope 

Looks  to  the  azure  cope, 
Waits  through  dark  ages  for  the  morn, 
Defeated  day  by  day,  but  unto  Victory  born. 


WAR.] 


IT  has  been  a  favorite  study  of  modern  philos 
ophy  to  indicate  the  steps  of  human  progress,  to 
watch  the  rising  of  a  thought  in  one  man's  mind, 
the  communication  of  it  to  a  few,  to  a  small  minor 
ity,  its  expansion  and  general  reception,  until  it 
publishes  itself  to  the  world  by  destroying  the  ex 
isting  laws  and  institutions,  and  the  generation  of 
new.  Looked  at  in  this  general  and  historical  way, 
many  things  wear  a  very  different  face  from  that 
they  show  near  by,  and  one  at  a  time,  —  and,  par 
ticularly,  war.  War,  which  to  sane  men  at  the 
present  day  begins  to  look  like  an  epidemic  insan 
ity,  breaking  out  here  and  there  like  the  cholera  or 
influenza,  infecting  men's  brains  instead  of  their 
bowels,  —  when  seen  in  the  remote  past,  in  the  in 
fancy  of  society,  appears  a  part  of  the  connection 
of  events,  and,  in  its  place,  necessary. 

As  far  as  history  has  preserved  to  us  the  slow 

1  Delivered  as  a  lecture  in  Boston,  in  March,  1838.  Re 
printed  from  "^Esthetic  Papers,"  edited  by  Miss  E.  P.  Pea- 
body,  1849. 


180  WAR. 

unfoldings  of  any  savage  tribe,  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
how  war  could  be  avoided  by  such  wild,  passionate, 
needy,  ungoverned,  strong-bodied  creatures.  For 
in  the  infancy  of  society,  when  a  thin  population 
and  improvidence  make  the  supply  of  food  and  of 
shelter  insufficient  and  very  precarious,  and  when 
hunger,  thirst,  ague  and  frozen  limbs  universally 
take  precedence  of  the  wants  of  the  mind  and  the 
heart,  the  necessities  of  the  strong  will  certainly  be 
satisfied  at  the  cost  of  the  weak,  at  whatever  peril 
of  future  revenge.  It  is  plain,  too,  that  in  the  first 
dawnings  of  the  religious  sentiment,  that  blends 
itself  with  their  passions  and  is  oil  to  the  fire.  Not 
only  every  tribe  has  war-gods,  religious  festivals  in 
victory,  but  religious  wars. 

The  student  of  history  acquiesces  the  more  read 
ily  in  this  copious  bloodshed  of  the  early  annals, 
bloodshed  in  God's  name  too,  when  he  learns  that 
it  is  a  temporary  and  preparatory  state,  and  does 
actively  forward  the  culture  of  man.  War  edu 
cates  the  senses,  calls  into  action  the  will,  perfects 
the  physical  constitution,  brings  men  into  such  swift 
and  close  collision  in  critical  moments  that  man 
measures  man.  On  its  own  scale,  on  the  virtues  it 
loves,  it  endures  no  counterfeit,  but  shakes  the 
whole  society  until  every  atom  falls  into  the  place 
its  specific  gravity  assigns  it.  It  presently  finds 
the  value  of  good  sense  and  of  foresight,  and  Ulys- 


WAR.  181 

ses  takes  rank  next  to  Achilles.  The  leaders, 
picked  men  of  a  courage  and  vigor  tried  and  aug 
mented  in  fifty  battles,  are  emulous  to  distinguish 
themselves  above  each  other  by  new  merits,  as 
clemency,  hospitality,  splendor  of  living.  The  peo 
ple  imitate  the  chiefs.  The  strong  tribe,  in  which 
war  has  become  an  art,  attack  and  conquer  their 
neighbors,  and  teach  them  their  arts  and  virtues. 
New  territory,  augmented  numbers  and  extended 
interests  call  out  new  virtues  and  abilities,  and  the 
tribe  makes  long  strides.  And,  finally,  when  much 
progress  has  been  made,  all  its  secrets  of  wisdom 
and  art  are  disseminated  by  its  invasions.  JPlu- 
tarch,  in  his  essay  "  On  the  Fortune  of  Alexander," 
considers  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  the  East  by 
Alexander  as  one  of  the  most  bright  and  pleasing 
pages  in  history;  and  it  must  be  owned  he  gives 
sound  reason  for  his  opinion.  It  had  the  effect 
of  uniting  into  one  great  interest  the  divided  com 
monwealths  of  Greece,  and'  infusing  a  new  and 
more  enlarged  public  spirit  into  the  councils  of 
their  statesmen.  It  carried  the  arts  and  language 
and  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  into  the  sluggish  and 
barbarous  nations  of  Persia,  Assyria  and  India.  It 
introduced  the  arts  of  husbandry  among  tribes  of 
hunters  and  shepherds.  It  weaned  the  Scythians 
and  Persians  from  some  cruel  and  licentious  prac 
tices  to  a  more  civil  way  of  life.  It  introduced 


182  WAR. 

the  sacredness  of  marriage  among  them.  It  built 
seventy  cities,  and  sowed  the  Greek  customs  and 
humane  laws  over  Asia,  and  united  hostile  nations 
under  one  code.  It  brought  different  families  of 
the  human  race  together,  —  to  blows  at  first,  but 
afterwards  to  truce,  to  trade  and  to  intermarriage. 
It  would  be  very  easy  to  show  analogous  benefits 
that  have  resulted  from  military  movements  of 
later  ages. 

Considerations  of  this  kind  lead  us  to  a  true 
view  of  the  nature  and  office  of  war.  We  see  it  is 
the  subject  of  all  history ;  that  it  has  been  the  prin 
cipal  employment  of  the  most  conspicuous  men  ; 
that  it  is  at  this  moment  the  delight  of  half  the 
world,  of  almost  all  young  and  ignorant  persons ; 
that  it  is  exhibited  to  us  continually  in  the  dumb 
show  of  brute  nature,  where  war  between  tribes, 
and  between  individuals  of  the  same  tribe,  perpet 
ually  rages.  The  microscope  reveals  miniature 
butchery  in  atomies  and  infinitely  small  biters  that 
swim  and  fight  in  an  illuminated  drop  of  water ; 
and  the  little  globe  is  but  a  too  faithful  miniature 
of  the  large. 

What  does  all  this  war,  beginning  from  the  low 
est  races  and  reaching  up  to  man,  signify  ?  Is  it 
not  manifest  that  it  covers  a  great  and  beneficent 
principle,  which  nature  had  deeply  at  heart  ? 
What  is  that  principle  ?  —  It  is  self-help.  Nature 


WAR.  183 

implants  with  life  the  instinct  of  self-help,  perpet 
ual  struggle  to  be,  to  resist  opposition,  to  attain  to 
freedom,  to  attain  to  a  mastery  and  the  security 
of  a  permanent,  self -defended  being ;  and  to  each 
creature  these  objects  are  made  so  dear  that  it 
risks  its  life  continually  in  the  struggle  for  these 
ends. 

But  whilst  this  principle,  necessarily,  is  inwrought 
into  the  fabric  of  every  creature,  yet  it  is  but  one 
instinct ;  and  though  a  primary  one,  or  we  may  say 
the  very  first,  yet  the  appearance  of  the  other 
instincts  immediately  modifies  and  controls  this ; 
turns  its  energies  into  harmless,  useful  and  high 
courses,  showing  thereby  what  was  its  ultimate 
design ;  and,  finally,  takes  out  its  fangs.  The  in 
stinct  of  self-help  is  very  early  unfolded  in  the 
coarse  and  merely  brute  form  of  war,  only  in  the 
childhood  and  imbecility  of  the  other  instincts,  and 
remains  in  that  form  only  until  their  development. 
It  is  the  ignorant  and  childish  part  of  mankind 
that  is  the  fighting  part.  Idle  and  vacant  minds 
want  excitement,  as  all  boys  kill  cats.  Bull-baiting, 
cockpits  and  the  boxer's  ring  are  the  enjoyment  of 
the  part  of  society  whose  animal  nature  alone  has 
been  developed.  In  some  parts  of  this  country, 
where  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  have  as 
yet  scarcely  any  culture,  the  absorbing  topic  of  all 
conversation  is  whipping ;  who  fought,  and  which 


184  WAR. 

whipped  ?  Of  man,  boy,  or  beast,  the  only  trait 
that  much  interests  the  speakers  is  the  pugnacity. 
And  why?  Because  the  speaker  has  as  yet  no 
other  image  of  manly  activity  and  virtue,  none  of 
endurance,  none  of  perseverance,  none  of  charity, 
none  of  the  attainment  of  truth.  Put  him  into  a 
circle  of  -  cultivated  men,  where  the  conversation 
broaches  the  great  questions  that  besiege  the  hu 
man  reason,  and  he  would  be  dumb  and  unhappy, 
as  an  Indian  in  church. 

To  men  of  a  sedate  and  mature  spirit,  in  whom 
is  any  knowledge  or  mental  activity,  the  detail  of 
battle  becomes  insupportably  tedious  and  revolting. 
It  is  like  the  talk  of  one  of  those  monomaniacs 
whom  we  sometimes  meet  in  society,  who  converse 
on  horses ;  and  Fontenelle  expressed  a  volume  of 
meaning  when  he  said,  "  I  hate  war,  for  it  spoils 
conversation." 

Nothing  is  plainer  than  that  the  sympathy  with 
war  is  a  juvenile  and  temporary  state.  /  Not  only  the 
moral  sentiment,  but  trade,  learning  and  whatever 
makes  intercourse,  conspire  to  put  it  down.  1  Trade, 
as  all  men  know,  is  the  antagonist  of  war.  Wher 
ever  there  is  no  property,  the  people  will  put  on  the 
knapsack  for  bread  ;  but  trade  is  instantly  endan 
gered  and  destroyed.  And,  moreover,  trade  brings 
men  to  look  each  other  in  the  face,  and  gives  the 
parties  the  knowledge  that  these  enemies  over  sea 


WAR.  185 

or  over  the  mountain  are  such  men  as  we ;  who 
laugh  and  grieve,  who  love  and  fear,  as  we  do. 
And  learning  and  art,  and  especially  religion, 
weave  ties  that  make  war  look  like  fratricide,  as  it 
is.  And  as  all  history  is  the  picture  of  war,  as  we 
have  said,  so  it  is  no  less  true  that  it  is  the  record 
of  the  mitigation  and  decline  of  war.  Early  in  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  the  Italian  cities 
had  grown  so  populous  and  strong,  that  they  forced 
the  rural  nobility  to  dismantle  their  castles,  which 
were  dens  of  cruelty,  and  come  and  reside  in  the 
towns.  The  Popes,  to  their  eternal  honor,  declared 
religious  jubilees,  during  which  all  hostilities  were 
suspended  throughout  Christendom,  and  man  had 
a  breathing  space.  The  increase  of  civility  has 
abolished  the  use  of  poison  and  of  torture,  once  sup 
posed  as  necessary  as  navies  now.  And,  finally, 
the  art  of  war,  what  with  gunpowder  and  tactics, 
has  made,  as  all  men  know,  battles  less  frequent 
and  less  murderous. 

By  all  these  means,  war  has  been  steadily  on  the 
decline ;  and  we  read  with  astonishment  of  the 
beastly  fighting  of  the  old  times.  Only  in  Eliz 
abeth's  time,  out  of  the  European  waters,  piracy 
was  all  but  universal.  The  proverb  was,  —  "  No 
peace  beyond  the  line  ;  "  and  the  seaman  shipped 
on  the  buccaneer's  bargain,  "  No  prey,  no  pay." 
The  celebrated  Cavendish,  who  was  thought  in  his 


186  WAR. 

times  a  good  Christian  man,  wrote  thus  to  Lord 
Hunsdon,  on  his  return  from  a  voyage  round  the 
world :  —  "  Sept.  1588.  It  hath  pleased  Almighty 
God  to  suffer  me  to  circumpass  the  whole  globe 
of  the  world,  entering  in  at  the  Strait  of  Magel 
lan,  and  returning  by  the  Cape  of  Buena  Esperan- 
<ja ;  in  which  voyage,  I  have  either  discovered  or 
brought  certain  intelligence  of  all  the  rich  places  of 
the  world,  which  were  ever  discovered  by  any  Chris 
tian.  I  navigated  along  the  coast  of  Chili,  Peru, 
and  New  Spain,  where  I  made  great  spoils.  I 
burnt  and  sunk  nineteen  sail  of  ships,  small  and 
great.  All  the  villages  and  towns  that  ever  I 
landed  at,  I  burned  and  spoiled.  And  had  I  not 
been  discovered  upon  the  coast,  I  had  taken  great 
quantity  of  treasure.  The  matter  of  most  profit  to 
me  was  a  great  ship  of  the  king's,  which  I  took  at 
California,"  &c.  And  the  good  Cavendish  piously 
begins  this  statement,  —  "  It  hath  pleased  Almighty 
God." 

Indeed,  our  American  annals  have  preserved  the 
vestiges  of  barbarous  warfare  down  to  more  recent 
times.  I  read  in  Williams's  "  History  of  Maine," 
that  "  Assacombuit,  the  Sagamore  of  the  Anagunti- 
cook  tribe,  was  remarkable  for  his  turpitude  and 
ferocity  above  all  other  known  Indians  ;  that,  in 
1705,  Vaudreuil  sent  him  to  France,  where  he  was 
introduced  to  the  king.  When  he  appeared  at 


WAR.  187 

court,  he  lifted  up  his  hand,  and  said,  '  This  hand 
has  slain  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  your  majesty's  ene 
mies  within  the  territories  of  New  England.'  This 
so  pleased  the  king  that  he  knighted  him,  and  or 
dered  a  pension  of  eight  livres  a  day  to  be  paid 
him  during  life."  This  valuable  person,  on  his  re 
turn  to  America,  took  to  killing  his  own  neighbors 
and  kindred,  with  such  appetite  that  his  tribe  com 
bined  against  him,  and  would  have  killed  him  had 
he  not  fled  his  country  for  ever. 

The  scandal  which  we  feel  in  such  facts  certainly 
shows  that  we  have  got  on  a  little.  All  history  is 
the  decline  of  war,  though  the  slow  decline.  All 
that  society  has  yet  gained  is  mitigation  :  the  doc 
trine  of  the  right  of  war  still  remains. 

For  ages  (for  ideas  work  in  ages,  and  animate 
vast  societies  of  men)  the  human  race  has  gone  on 
under  the  tyranny  —  shall  I  so  call  it?  —  of  this 
first  brutish  form  of  their  effort  to  be  men ;  that  is, 
for  ages  they  have  shared  so  much  of  the  nature  of 
the  lower  animals,  the  tiger  and  the  shark,  and  the 
savages  of  the  water-drop.  They  have  nearly  ex 
hausted  all  the  good  and  all  the  evil  of  this  form  : 
they  have  held  as  fast  to  this  degradation  as  their 
worst  enemy  could  desire  ;  but  all  things  have  an 
end,  and  so  has  this.  The  eternal  germination  of 
the  better  has  unfolded  new  powers,  new  instincts, 
which  were  really  concealed  under  this  rough  and 


188  WAR 

base  rind.     The  sublime  question  has  startled  one 
and  another  happy  soul  in  different  quarters  of  the 
globe,  —^Cannot  love  be,  as  well  as  hate  ?  ^  Would  \ 
not  love  answer  the  same  end,  or  even  a  better  ?  ) 
Cannot  peace  be,  as  well  as  war  ?  J 

This  thought  is  no  man's  invention,  neither  St. 
Pierre's  nor  Rousseau's,  but  the  rising^of^  the  gen- 
eral_tide_in_the  human  soul,  —  and  rising  highest, 
and  first  made  visible,  in  the  most  simple  and  pure 
souls,  who  have  therefore  announced  it  to  us  before 
hand  ;  but  presently  we  all  see  it.  It  has  now  be 
come  so  distinct  as  to  be  a  social  thought :  societies 
can  be  formed  on  it.  It  is  expounded,  illustrated, 
defined,  with  different  degrees  of  clearness  ;  and 
its  actualization,  or  the  measures  it  should  inspire, 
predicted  according  to  the  light  of  each  seer. 

The  idea  itself  is  the  epoch ;  the  fact  that  it  has 
become  so  distinct  to  any  small  number  of  persons 
as  to  become  a  subject  of  prayer  and  hope,  of  con 
cert  and  discussion,  —  that  is  the_conimanding 
fact.  This  having  come,  much  more  will  follow. 
Revolutions  go  not  backward.  The  star  once  risen, 
though  only  one  man  in  the  hemisphere  has  yet  seen 
its  upper  limb  in  the  horizon,  will  mount  and 
mount,  until  it  becomes  visible  to  other  men,  to 
multitudes,  and  climbs  the  zenith  of  all  eyes.  And 
so  it  is  not  a  great  matter  how  long  men  refuse  to 
believe  the  advent  of  peace :  war  is  on  its  last  legs ; 


WAR.  189 

and  a  universal  peace  is  as  sure  as  is  the  preva 
lence  of  civilization  over  barbarism,  of  liberal  gov 
ernments  over  feudal  forms.  The  question  for  us 
is  only  How  soon  ? 

That  the  project  of  peace  should  appear  visionary 
to  great  numbers  of  sensible  men  ;  should  appear 
laughable  even,  to  numbers ;  should  appear  to  the 
grave  and  good-natured  to  be  embarrassed  with  ex 
treme  practical  difficulties,  —  is  very  natural.  '  This 
is  a  poor,  tedious  society  of  yours,'  they  say  :  4  we 
do  not  see  what  good  can  come  of  it.  Peace !  why, 
we  are  all  at  peace  now.  But  if  a  foreign  nation 
should  wantonly  insult  or  plunder  our  commerce, 
or,  worse  yet,  should  land  on  our  shores  to  rob  and 
kill,  you  would  not  have  us  sit,  and  be  robbed  and 
killed  ?  You  mistake  the  times  ;  you  overestimate 
the  virtue  of  men.  You  forget  that  the  quiet  which 
now  sleeps  in  cities  and  in  farms,  which  lets  the 
wagon  go  unguarded  and  the  farmhouse  unbolted, 
rests  on  the  perfect  understanding  of  all  men  that 
the  musket,  the  halter  and  the  jail  stand  behind 
there,  ready  to  punish  any  disturber  of  it.  All  ad 
mit  that  this  would  be  the  best  policy,  if  the  world 
were  all  a  church,  if  all  men  were  the  best  men,  if 
all  would  agree  to  accept  this  rule.  But  it  is  ab 
surd  for  one  nation  to  attempt  it  alone." 

In  the  first  place,  we  answer  that  we  never  make 
much  account  of  objections  which  merely  respect 


190  WAR. 

the  actual  state  of  the  world  at  this  moment,  but 
which  admit  the  general  expediency  and  permanent 
excellence  of  the  project.  What  is  the  best  must  be 
the  true ;  and  what  is  true,  —  that  is,  what  is  at  bot 
tom  fit  and  agreeable  to  the  constitution  of  man,  — 
must  at  last  prevail  over  all  obstruction  and  all  op 
position.  There  is  no  good  now  enjoyed  by  society 
that  was  not  once  as  problematical  and  visionary 
[as  this.  It  is  the  tendency  of  the  true  interest  of 
man  to  become  his  desire  and  steadfast  aim. 

But,  further,  it  is  a  lesson  which  all  history 
teaches  wise  men,  to  put  trust_in_ideas,  and  not_in 
circumstances.  We  have  all  grown  up  in  the  sight 
of  frigates  and  navy  yards,  of  armed  forts  and 
islands,  of  arsenals  and  militia.  The  reference  to 
any  foreign  register  will  inform  us  of  the  number  of 
thousand  or  million  men  that  are  now  under  arms 
in  the  vast  colonial  system  of  the  British  empire,  of 
Russia,  Austria  and  France ;  and  one  is  scared  to 
find  at  what  a  cost  the  peace  of  the  globe  is  kept. 
This  vast  apparatus  of  artillery,  of  fleets,  of  stone 
bastions  and  trenches  and  embankments ;  this 
incessant  patrolling  of  sentinels ;  this  waving  of 
national  flags  ;  this  reveille  and  evening  gun  ;  this 
martial  music  and  endless  playing  of  marches  and 
singing  of  military  and  naval  songs  seem  to  us  to 
constitute  an  imposing  actual,  which  will  not  yield 
in  centuries  to  the  feeble,  deprecatory  voices  of  a 
handful  of  friends  of  peace. 


WAR.  191 

Thus  always  we  are  daunted  by  the  appearances  ; 
not  seeing  that  their  whole  value  lies  at  bottom  in 
the  state  of  mind.  It  is  really  a  thought  that  built 
this  portentous  war-establishment,  andja_thought 
shall  also  jnelt^it  liway.  Every  nation  and  every 
man  instantly  surround  themselves  with  a  material 
apparatus  which  exactly  corresponds  to  their  moral 
state,  or  their  state  of  thought.  Observe  how  every 
truth  and  every  error,  each  a  thought  of  some 
man's  mind,  clothes  itself  with  societies,  houses, 
cities,  language,  ceremonies,  newspapers.  Observe 
the  ideas  of  the  present  day,  —  orthodoxy,  skepti 
cism,  missions,  popular  education,  temperance,  anti- 
masonry,  anti-slavery ;  see  how  each  of  these 
abstractions  has  embodied  itself  in  an  imposing 
apparatus  in  the  community ;  and  how  timber, 
brick,  lime  and  stone  have  flown  into  convenient 
shape,  obedient  to  the  master-idea  reigning  in  the 
minds  of  many  persons. 

You  shall  hear,  some  day,  of  a  wild  fancy  which 
some  man  has  in  his  brain,  of  the  mischief  of  secret 
oaths.  Come  again  one  or  two  years  afterwards, 
and  you  shall  see  it  has  built  great  houses  of  solid 
wood  and  brick  and  mortar.  You  shall  see  a  hun 
dred  presses  printing  a  million  sheets  ;  you  shall 
see  men  and  horses  and  wheels  made  to  walk,  run 
and  roll  for  it :  this  great  body  of  matter  thus 
executing  that  one  man's  wild  thought.  This  hap- 


192  WAR. 

pens  daily,  yearly  about  us,  with  half  thoughts, 
often  with  flimsy  lies,  pieces  of  policy  and  specula 
tion.  With  good  nursing  they  will  last  three  or 
four  years  before  they  will  come  to  nothing.  But 
when  a  truth  appears,  —  as,  for  instance,  a  percep 
tion  in  the  wit  of  one  Columbus  that  there  is  land 
in  the  Western  Sea ;  though  he  alone  of  all  men 
has  that  thought,  and  they  all  jeer,  —  it  will  build 
ships  ;  it  will  build  fleets ;  it  will  carry  over  half 
Spain  and  half  England ;  it  will  plant  a  colony,  a 
state,  nations  and  half  a  globe  full  of  men. 

We  surround  ourselves  always,  according  to  our 
freedom  and  ability,  with  true  images  of  ourselves 
in  things,  whether  it  be  ships  or  books  or  cannons 
or  churches.  The  standing  army,  the  arsenal,  the 
camp  and  the  gibbet  do  not  appertain  to  man. 
They  only  serve  as  an  index  to  show  where  man  is 
now ;  what  a  bad,  ungoverned  temper  he  has ; 
what  an  ugly  neighbor  he  is ;  how  his  affections 
halt ;  how  low  his  hope  lies.  He  who  loves  the 
bristle  of  bayonets  only  sees  in  their  glitter  what 
beforehand  he  feels  in  his  heart.  It  is  avarice  and 
hatred ;  it  is  that  quivering  lip,  that  cold,  hating 
eye,  which  built  magazines  and  powder-houses. 

It  follows  of  course  that  the  least  change  in  the 
man  will  change  his  circumstances ;  the  least 
enlargement  of  his  ideas,  the  least  mitigation  of  his 
feelings  in  respect  to  other  men ;  if,  for  example, 


WAR.  193 

he  could  be  inspired  with  a  tender  kindness  to  the 
souls  of  men,  and  should  come  to  feel  that  every 
man  was  another  self  with  whom  he  might  come  to 
join,  as  left  hand  works  with  right.  Every  degree 
of  the  ascendancy  of  this  feeling  would  cause  the 
most  striking  changes  of  external  things :  the  tents 
would  be  struck  ;  the  men-of-war  would  rot  ashore  ; 
the  arms  rust;  the  cannon  would  become  street- 
posts  ;  the  pikes,  a  fisher's  harpoon ;  the  marching 
regiment  would  be  a  caravan  of  emigrants,  peaceful 
pioneers  at  the  fountains  of  the  Wabash  and  the 
Missouri.  And  so  it  must  and  will  be :  bayonet 
and  sword  must  first  retreat  a  little  from  their 
ostentatious  prominence ;  then  quite  hide  them 
selves,  as  the  sheriff's  halter  does  now,  inviting  the 
attendance  only  of  relations  and  friends  ;  and  then, 
lastly,  will  be  transferred  to  the  museums  of  the 
curious,  as  poisoning  and  torturing  tools  are  at  this 
day. 

War  and  peace  thus  resolve  themselves  into  a 
mercury  of  the  state  of  cultivation.  At  a  certain 
stage  of  his  progress,  the  man  fights,  if  he  be  of  a 
sound  body  and  mind.  At  a  certain  higher  stage, 
he  makes  no  offensive  demonstration,  but  is  alert  to 
repel  injury,  and  of  an  unconquerable  heart.  At  a 
still  higher  stage,  he  comes  into  the  region  of  holi 
ness  ;  passion  has  passed  away  from  him  ;  his  war 
like  nature  is  all  converted  into  an  active  medicinal 

VOL.   XI.  13 


194  WAR. 

principle;  he  sacrifices  himself,  and  accepts  with 
alacrity  wearisome  tasks  of  denial  and  charity  ; 
but,  being  attacked,  he  bears  it  and  turns  the  other 
cheek,  as  one  engaged,  throughout  his  being,  no 
longer  to  the  service  of  an  individual  but  to  the 
common  soul  of  all  men. 

Since  the  peace  question  has  been  before  the 
public  mind,  those  who  affirm  its  right  and  expe 
diency  have  naturally  been  met  with  objections 
more  or  less  weighty.  There  are  cases  frequently 
put  by  the  curious,  —  moral  problems,  like  those 
problems  in  arithmetic  which  in  long  winter  even 
ings  the  rustics  try  the  hardness  of  their  heads  in 
ciphering  out.  And  chiefly  it  is  said,  —  Either  ac 
cept  this  principle  for  better,  for  worse,  carry  it  out 
to  the  end,  and  meet  its  absurd  consequences ;  or 
else,  if  you  pretend  to  set  an  arbitrary  limit,  a 
"  Thus  far,  no  farther,"  then  give  up  the  principle, 
and  take  that  limit  which  the  common-sense  of  all 
mankind  has  set,  and  which  distinguishes  offensive 
war  as  criminal,  defensive  war  as  just.  Otherwise, 
if  you  go  for  no  war,  then  be  consistent,  and  give 
up  self-defence  in  the  highway,  in  your  own  house. 
Will  you  push  it  thus  far?  Will  you  stick  to  your 
principle  of  non-resistance  when  your  strong-box  is 
broken  open,  when  your  wife  and  babes  are  insulted 
and  slaughtered  in  your  sight  ?  If  you  say  yes, 
you  only  invite  the  robber  and  assassin ;  and  a 


WAR.  195 

few  bloody-minded  desperadoes  would  soon  butcher 
the  good. 

In  reply  to  this  charge  of  absurdity  on  the  ex 
treme  peace  doctrine,  as  shown  in  the  supposed  con 
sequences,  I  wish  to  say  that  such  deductions  con 
sider  only  one  half  of  the  fact.v  They  look  only  at 
the  passive  side  of  the  friend  of  peace,  only  at  his 
passivity ;  they  quite  omit  to  consider  his  activity. 
But  no  man,  it  may  be  presumed,  ever  embraced 
the  cause  of  peace  and  philanthropy  for  the  sole 
end  and  satisfaction  of  being  plundered  and  slain. 
A  man  does  not  come  the  length  of  the  spirit  of 
martyrdom  without  some  active  purpose,  some 
equal  motive,  some  flaming  love.  If  you  have  a  na 
tion  of  men  who  have  risen  to  that  height  of  moral 
cultivation  that  they  will  not  declare  war  or  carry 
arms,  for  they  have  not  so  much  madness  left  in 
their  brains,  you  have  a  nation  of  lovers,  of  bene 
factors,  of  true,  great  and  able  men.  Let  me  know 
more  of  that  nation  ;  I  shall  not  find  them  defence 
less,  with  idle  hands  springing  at  their  sides.  I 
shall  find  them  men  of  love,  honor  and  truth  ;  men 
of  an  immense  industry;  men  whose  influence  is 
felt  to  the  end  of  the  earth  ;  men  whose  very  look 
and  voice  carry  the  sentence  of  honor  and  shame ; 
and  all  forces  yield  to  their  energy  and  persuasion. 
"Whenever  we  see  the  doctrine  of  peace  embraced 
by  a  nation,  we  may  be  assured  it  will  not  be  one 


196  WAR. 

that  invites  injury ;  but  one,  on  the  contrary,  which 
has  a  friend  in  the  bottom  of  the  heart  of  every 
man,  even  of  the  violent  and  the  base  ;  one  against 
which  no  weapon  can  prosper ;  one  which  is  looked 
upon  as  the  asylum  of  the  human  race  and  has  the 
tears  and  the  blessings  of  mankind. 

In  the  second  place,  as  far  as  it  respects  individ 
ual  action  in  difficult  and  extreme  cases,  I  will 
say,  such  cases  seldom  or  never  occur  to  the  good 
and  just  man  ;  nor  are  we  careful  to  say,  or  even 
to  know,  what  in  such  crises  is  to  be  done.  A  wise 
man  will  never  impawn  his  future  being  and  action, 
and  decide  beforehand  what  he  shall  do  in  a  given 
extreme  event.  Nature  and  God  will  instruct  him 
in  that  hour. 

The  question  naturally  arises,  How  is  this  new 
aspiration  of  the  human  mind  to  be  made  visible 
arid  real  ?  How  is  it  to  pass  out  of  thoughts  into 
things  ? 

Not,  certainly,  in  the  first  place,  in  the  way  of 
routine  and  mere  forms,  —  the  universal  specific  of 
modern  politics  ;  not  by  organizing  a  society,  and 
going  through  a  course  of  resolutions  and  public 
manifestoes,  and  being  thus  formally  accredited  to 
the  public  and  to  the  civility  of  the  newspapers. 
We  have  played  this  game  to  tediousness.  In 
some  of  our  cities  they  choose  noted  duellists  as 
presidents  and  officers  of  anti-duelling  societies. 


WAR.  197 

Men  who  love  that  bloated  vanity  called  public 
opinion  think  all  is  well  if  they  have  once  got  their 
bantling  through  a  sufficient  course  of  speeches 
and  cheerings,  of  one,  two,  or  three  public  meetings ; 
as  if  they  could  do  anything :  they  vote  and  vote, 
cry  hurrah  011  both  sides,  110  man  responsible,  no 
man  caring  a  pin.  The  next  season,  an  Indian 
war,  or  an  aggression  on  our  commerce  by  Malays ; 
or  the  party  this  man  votes  with  have  an  appropri 
ation  to  carry  through  Congress  :  instantly  he  wags 
his  head  the  other  way,  and  cries,  Havoc  and  war  ! 

This  is  not  to  be  carried  by  public  opinion,  but 
by  private  opinion,  by  private  conviction,  by  private, 
dejir_and  earliest  love.  *For  the  only  hope  of  this 
cause  is  in  the  increased  insight,  and  it  is  to  be  ac 
complished  by  the  spontaneous  teaching,  of  the  cul 
tivated  soul,  in  its  secret  experience  and  meditation, 
—  that  it  is  now  time  that  it  should  pass  out  of  the 
state  of  beast  into  the  state  of  man ;  it  is  to  hear 
the  voice  of  God,  which  bids  the  devils  that  have 
rended  and  torn  him  come  out  of  him  and  let  him 
now  be  clothed  and  walk  forth  in  his  right  mind. 

Nor,  in  the  next  place,  is  the  peace  principle  to 
be  carried  into  effect  by  fear.  It  can  never  be  de 
fended,  it  can  never  be  executed,  by  cowards. 
Everything  great  must  be  done  in  the  spirit  of 
greatness.  The  manhood  that  has  been  in  war 
must  be  transferred  to  the  cause  of.  peace,  before 


198  WAR. 

war  can  lose  its  charm,  and  peace  be  venerable  to 
men. 

The  attractiveness  of  war  shows  one  thing 
through  all  the  throats  of  artillery,  the  thunders  of 
so  many  sieges,  the  sack  of  towns,  the  jousts  of 
chivalry,  the  shock  of  hosts,  —  this  namely,  the 
conviction  of  man  universally,  that  a  man  should 
be  himself  responsible,  with  goods,  health  and  life, 
for  his  behavior ;  that  he  should  not  ask  of  the 
State  protection ;  should  ask  nothing  of  the  State ; 
should  be  himself^Jkingd<mi^an.d  a  state  ;  fearing 
no  man ;  quite  willing  to  use  the  opportunities  and 
advantages  that  good  government  throw  in  his  way, 
but  nothing  daunted,  and  not  really  the  poorer  if 
government,  law  and  order  went  by  the  board  ;  be 
cause  in  himself  reside  infinite  resources ;  because 
he  is  sure  of  himself,  and  never  needs  to  ask 
another  what  in  any  crisis  it  behooves  him  to  do. 

What  makes  to  us  the  attractiveness  of  the 
Greek  heroes  ?  of  the  Roman  ?  What  makes  the 
attractiveness  of  that  romantic  style  of  living  which 
is  the  material  of  ten  thousand  plays  and  romances, 
from  Shakspeare  to  Scott ;  the  feudal  baron,  the 
French,  the  English  nobility,  the  Warwicks,  Plan- 
tagenets  ?  It  is  their  absolute  self-dependence.  I 
do  not  wonder  at  the  dislike  some  of  the  friends  of 
peace  have  expressed  at  Shakspeare.  The  veriest 
churl  and  Jacobin  cannot  resist  the  influence  of  the 


WAR.  199 

style  and  manners  of  these  haughty  lords.  We  are 
affected,  as  boys  and  barbarians  are,  by  the  appear 
ance  of  a  few  rich  and  wilful  gentlemen  who  take 
their  honor  into  their  own  keeping,  defy  the  world, 
so  confident  are  they  of  their  courage  and  strength, 
and  whose  appearance  is  the  arrival  of  so  much 
life  and  virtue.  In  dangerous  times  they  are  pres 
ently  tried,  and  therefore  their  name  is  a  flourish 
of  trumpets.  They,  at  least,  affect  us  as  a  reality. 
They  are  not  shams,  but  the  substance  of  which 
that  age  and  world  is  made.  They  are  true  heroes 
for  their  time.  They  make  what  is  in  their  minds 
the  greatest  sacrifice.  They  will,  for  an  injurious 
word,  peril  all  their  state  and  wealth,  and  go  to  the 
field.  Take  away  that  principle  of  responsibleness, 
and  they  become  pirates  and  ruffians. 

This  self-subsistency  is  the  charm  of  war  ;  for 
this  self-subsistency  is  essential  to  our  idea  of  man. 
But  another  age  comes,  a  truer  religion  and  ethics 
open,  and  a  man  puts  himself  under  the  dominion 
of  ^principles.  I  see  him  to  be  the  servant  of  truth, 
of  love  and  of  freedom,  and  immoveable  in  the 
waves  of  the  crowd.  The  man  of  principle,  that  is, 
the  man  who,  without  any  flourish  of  trumpets, 
titles  of  lordship  or  train  of  guards,  without  any 
notice  of  his  action  abroad,  expecting  none,  takes 
in  solitude  the  right  step  uniformly,  on  his  private 
choice  and  disdaining  consequences,  —  does  not 


200 

yield,  in  my  imagination,  to  any  man.  He  is  will 
ing  to  be  hanged  at  his  own  gate,  rather  than  con 
sent  to  any  compromise  of  his  freedom  or  the  sup 
pression  of  his  conviction.  I  regard  no  longer  those 
names  tha,t  so  tingled  in  my  ear.  This  is  a  baron 
of  a  better  nobility  and  a  stouter  stomach. 

The  cause  of  peace  is  not  the  cause  of  cowardice. 
If  peace  is  sought  to  be  defended  or  preserved  for 
the  safety  of  the  luxurious  and  the  timid,  it  is  a 
sham,  and  the  peace  will  be  base.  War  is  better, 
and  the  peace  will  be  broken.  If  peace  is  to  be 
maintained,  it  must  be  by  brave  men,  who  have 
come  up  to  the  same  height  as  the  hero,  namely, 
the  will  to  carry  their  life  in  their  hand,  and  stake 
it  at  any  instant  for  their  principle,  but  who  have 
gone  one  step  beyond  the  hero,  and  will  not  seek 
ano^lier^man's  life  ;  —  men  who  have,  by  their  in 
tellectual  insight  or  else  by  their  moral  elevation, 
attained  such  a  perception  of  their  own  intrinsic 
worth,  that  they  do  not  think  property  or  their  own 
body  a  sufficient  good  to  be  saved  by  such  derelic 
tion  of  principle  as  treating  a  man  like  a  sheep. 

If  the  universal  cry  for  reform  of  so  many  in 
veterate  abuses,  with  which  society  rings,  —  if  the 
desire  of  a  large  class  of  young  men  for  a  faith  and 
hope,  intellectual  and  religious,  such  as  they  have 
not  yet  found,  be  an  omen  to  be  trusted  ;  if  the  dis 
position  to  rely  more  in  study  and  in  action  on  the 


WAR.  201 

unexplored  riches  of  the  human  constitution,  —  if 
the  search  of  the  sublime  laws  of  morals  and  the 
sources  of  hope  and  trust,  in  man,  and  not  in 
books,  in  the  present,  and  not  in  the  past,  proceed ; 
if  the  rising  generation  can  be  provoked  to  think  it 
unworthy  to  nestle  into  every  abomination  of  the 
past,  and  shall  feel  the  generous  darings  of  auster 
ity  and  virtue,  then  war  has  a  short  day,  and  hu 
man  blood  will  cease  to  flow. 

It  is  of  little  consequence  in  what  manner, 
through  what  organs,  this  purpose  of  mercy  and 
holiness  is  effected.  The  proposition  of  the  Con 
gress  of  Nations  is  undoubtedly  that  at  which  the 
present  fabric  of  our  society  and  the  present  course 
of  events  do  point.  But  the  mind,  once  prepared 
for  the  reign  of  principles,  will  easily  find  modes 
of  expressing  its  will.  There  is  the  highest  fitness 
in  the  place  and  time  in  which  this  enterprise  is 
begun.  Not  in  an  obscure  corner,  not  in  a  feudal 
Europe,  not  in  an  antiquated  appanage  where  no 
onward  step  can  be  taken  without  rebellion,  is  this 
seed  of  benevolence  laid  in  the  furrow,  with  tears 
of  hope ;  but  in  this  broad  America  of  God  and 
man,  where  the  forest  is  only  now  falling,  or  yet  to 
fall,  and  the  green  earth  opened  to  the  inundation 
of  emigrant  men  from  all  quarters  of  oppression 
and  guilt  ;  here,  where  not  a  family,  not  a  few 
men,  but  mankind,  shall  say  what  shall  be ;  here, 
we  ask,  Shall  it  be  War,  or  shall  it  be  Peace  ? 


THE  FUGITIVE   SLAVE  LAW. 

LECTURE  READ  IN  THE  TABERNACLE,  NEW  YORK  CITY, 
MARCH   7,  1854. 


THE  FUGITIVE   SLAVE  LAW. 


I  DO  not  often  speak  to  public  questions  ;  —  they 
are  odious  and  hurtful,  and  it  seems  like  meddling 
or  leaving  your  work.  I  have  my  own  spirits  in 
prison  ;  —  spirits  in  deeper  prisons,  whom  no  man 
visits  if  I  do  not.  And  then  I  see  what  havoc  it 
makes  with  any  good  mind,  a  dissipated  philan 
thropy.  The  one  thing  not  to  be  forgiven  to  intel 
lectual  persons  is,  not  to  know  their  own  task,  or  to 
take  their  ideas  from  others.  From  this  want  of 
manly  rest  in  their  own  and  rash  acceptance  of 
other  people's  watchwords,  come  the  imbecility  and 
fatigue  of  their  conversation.  For  they  cannot 
affirm  these  from  any  original  experience,  and  of 
course  not  with  the  natural  movement  and  total 
strength  of  their  nature  and  talent,  but  only  from 
their  memory,  only  from  their  cramp  position  of 
standing  for  their  teacher.  They  say  what  they 
would  have  you  believe,  but  what  they  do  not  quite 
know. 

My  own  habitual  view  is  to  the  well-being  of 
students  or  scholars.  And  it  is  only  when  the 


206  LECTURE  ON  THE 

public  event  affects  them,  that  it  very  seriously 
touches  me.  And  what  I  have  to  say  is  to  them. 
For  every  man  speaks  mainly  to  a  class  whom  he 
works  with  and  more  or  less  fully  represents.  It 
is  to  these  I  am  beforehand  related  and  engaged, 
in  this  audience  or  out  of  it  —  to  them  and  not  to 
others.  And  yet,  when  I  say  the  class  of  scholars 
or  students,  —  that  is  a  class  which  comprises  in 
some  sort  all  mankind,  comprises  every  man  in  the 
best  hours  of  his  life  ;  and  in  these  days  not  only 
virtually  but  actually.  For  who  are  the  readers 
and  thinkers  of  1854  ?  Owing  to  the  silent  revolu 
tion  which  the  newspaper  has  wrought,  this  class 
has  come  in  this  country  to  take  in  all  classes. 
Look  into  the  morning  trains  which,  from  every 
suburb,  carry  the  business  men  into  the  city  to  their 
shops,  counting-rooms,  work-yards  and  warehouses. 
With  them  enters  the  car — the  newsboy,  that  hum 
ble  priest  of  politics,  finance,  philosophy,  and  relig 
ion.  He  unfolds  his  magical  sheets,  —  twopence 
a  head  his  bread  of  knowledge  costs  —  and  instant!}' 
the  entire  rectangular  assembly,  fresh  from  their 
breakfast,  are  bending  as  one  man  to  their  second 
breakfast.  There  is,  no  doubt,  chaff  enough  in 
what  he  brings;  but  there  is  fact,  thought,  and 
wisdom  in  the  crude  mass,  from  all  regions  of  the 
world. 

I  have  lived   all  my  life  without  suffering  any 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  207 

known  inconvenience  from  American  Slavery.  I 
never  saw  it ;  I  never  heard  the  whip ;  I  never  felt 
the  check  011  my  free  speech  and  action,  until,  the 
other  day,  when  Mr.  Webster,  by  his  personal  in 
fluence,  brought  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  on  the 
country.  I  say  Mr.  Webster,  for  though  the  Bill 
was  not  his,  it  is  yet  notorious  that  he  was  the  life 
and  soul  of  it,  that  he  gave  it  all  he  had  :  it  cost 
him  his  life,  and  under  the  shadow  of  his  great 
name  inferior  men  sheltered  themselves,  threw 
their  ballots  for  it  and  made  the  law.  I  say  infe 
rior  men.  There  were  all  sorts  of  what  are  called 
brilliant  men,  accomplished  men,  men  of  high  sta 
tion,  a  President  of  the  United  States,  Senators, 
men  of  eloquent  speech,  but  men  without  self-re 
spect,  without  character,  and  it  was  strange  to  see 
that  office,  age,  fame,  talent,  even  a  repute  for 
honesty,  all  count  for  nothing.  They  had  no  opin 
ions,  they  had  no  memory  for  what  they  had  been 
saying  like  the  Lord's  Prayer  all  their  lifetime  : 
they  were  only  looking  to  what  their  great  Captain 
did:  if  he  jumped,  they  jumped,  if  he  stood  on  his 
head,  they  did.  In  ordinary,  the  supposed  sense  of 
their  district  and  State  is  their  guide,  and  that 
holds  them  to  the  part  of  liberty  and  justice.  But 
it  is  always  a  little  difficult  to  decipher  what  this 
public  sense  is ;  and  when  a  great  man  comes  who 
knots  up  into  himself  the  opinions  and  wishes  of 


208  LECTURE   ON  THE 

the  people,  it  is  so  much  easier  to  follow  him  as 
an  exponent  of  this.  He  too  is  responsible ;  they 
will  not  be.  It  will  always  suffice  to  say,  —  "I  fol 
lowed  him." 

I  saw  plainly  that  the  great  show  their  legitimate 
power  in  nothing  more  than  in  their  power  to  mis 
guide  us.  I  saw  that  a  great  man,  deservedly  ad 
mired  for  his  powers  and  their  general  right  direc 
tion,  was  able,  —  fault  of  the  total  want  of  stamina 
in  public  men,  —  when  he  failed,  to  break  them  all 
with  him,  to  carry  parties  with  him. 

In  what  I  have  to  say  of  Mr.  Webster  I  do  not 
confound  him  with  vulgar  politicians  before  or 
since.  There  is  always  base  ambition  enough,  men 
who  calculate  on  the  immense  ignorance  of  the 
masses ;  that  is  their  quarry  and  farm  :  they  use 
the  constituencies  at  home  only  for  their  shoes. 
And,  of  course,  they  can  drive  out  from  the  contest 
any  honorable  man.  The  low  can  best  win  the  low, 
and  all  men  like  to  be  made  much  of.  There  are 
those  too  who  have  power  and  inspiration  only  to 
do  ill.  Their  talent  or  their  faculty  deserts  them 
when  they  undertake  any  thing  right.  Mr.  Web 
ster  had  a  natural  ascendancy  of  aspect  and  car 
riage  which  distinguished  him  over  all  his  contem 
poraries.  His  countenance,  his  figure,  and  his 
manners  were  all  in  so  grand  a  style,  that  he  wras, 
without  effort,  as  superior  to  his  most  eminent 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  209 

rivals  as  they  were  to  the  humblest ;  so  that  his 
arrival  in  any  place  was  an  event  which  drew 
crowds  of  people,  who  went  to  satisfy  their  eyes, 
and  could  not  see  him  enough.  I  think  they  looked 
at  him  as  the  representative  of  the  American  Con 
tinent.  He  was  there  in  his  Adamitic  capacity,  as 
if  he  alone  of  all  men  did  not  disappoint  the  eye 
and  the  ear,  but  was  a  fit  figure  in  the  landscape. 

I  remember  his  appearance  at  Bunker's  Hill. 
There  was  the  Monument,  and  here  was  Webster. 
He  knew  well  that  a  little  more  or  less  of  rhetoric 
signified  nothing  :  he  was  only  to  say  plain  and 
equal  things,  —  grand  things  if  he  had  them,  and, 
if  he  had  them  not,  only  to  abstain  from  saying 
unfit  things,  —  and  the  whole  occasion  was  an 
swered  by  his  presence.  It  was  a  place  for  behav 
ior  more  than  for  speech,  and  Mr.  Webster  walked 
through  his  part  with  entire  success.  His  excellent 
organization,  the  perfection  of  his  elocution  and 
all  that  thereto  belongs,  —  voice,  accent,  intonation, 
attitude,  manner,  —  we  shall  not  soon  find  again. 
Then  he  was  so  thoroughly  simple  and  wise  in  his 
rhetoric  ;  he  saw  through  his  matter,  hugged  his 
fact  so  close,  went  to  the  principle  or  essential,  and 
never  indulged  in  a  weak  flourish,  though  he  knew 
perfectly  well  how  to  make  such  exordiums,  episodes 
and  perorations  as  might  give  perspective  to  his 
harangues  without  in  the  least  embarrassing  his 

VOL.   XI.  14 


210  LECTURE   ON  THE 

march  or  confounding  his  transitions.  In  his  state 
ment  things  lay  in  daylight ;  we  saw  them  in  order 
as  they  were.  Though  he  knew  very  well  how  to 
present  his  own  personal  claims,  yet  in  his  argu 
ment  he  was  intellectual,  —  stated  his  fact  pure  of 
all  personality,  so  that  his  splendid  wrath,  when 
his  eyes  became  lamps,  was  the  wrath  of  the  fact 
and  the  cause  he  stood  for. 

His  power,  like  that  of  all  great  masters,  was 
not  in  excellent  parts,  but  was  total.  He  had  a 
great  and  everywhere  equal  propriety.  He  worked 
with  that  closeness  of  adhesion  to  the  matter  in 
hand  which  a  joiner  or  a  chemist  uses,  and  the  same 
quiet  and  sure  feeling  of  right  to  his  place  that  an 
oak  or  a  mountain  have  to  theirs.  After  all  his 
talents  have  been  described,  there  remains  that  per 
fect  propriety  which  animated  all  the  details  of  the 
action  or  speech  with  the  character  of  the  whole, 
so  that  his  beauties  of  detail  are  endless.  He 
seemed  born  for  the  bar,  born  for  the  senate,  and 
took  very  naturally  a  leading  part  in  large  private 
and  in  public  affairs ;  for  his  head  distributed 
things  in  their  right  places,  and  what  he  saw  so 
well  he  compelled  other  people  to  see  also.  Great 
is  the  privilege  of  eloquence.  What  gratitude  does 
every  man  feel  to  him  who  speaks  well  for  the 
right,  —  who  translates  truth  into  language  entirely 
plain  and  clear ! 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  211 

The  history  of  this  country  has  given  a  disastrous 
importance  to  the  defects  of  this  great  man's  mind. 
Whether  evil  influences  and  the  corruption  of  poli 
tics,  or  whether  original  infirmity,  it  was  the  mis 
fortune  of  his  country  that  with  this  large  under 
standing  he  had  not  what  is  better  than  intellect, 
and  the  source  of  its  health.  _It -is- a  -law  of  our 
nature  that  great  thoughts  come  from  the  heart. 
If  his  moral  sensibility  had  been  proportioned  to 
the  force  of  his  understanding,  what  limits  could 
have  been  set  to  his  genius  and  beneficent  power  ? 
But  he  wanted  that  deep  source  of  inspiration. 
Hence  a  sterility  of  thought,  the  want  of  generaliz 
ation  in  his  speeches,  and  the  curious  fact  that, 
with  a  general  ability  which  impresses  all  the  world, 
there  is  not  a  single  general  remark,  not  an  obser 
vation  on  life  and  manners,  not  an  aphorism  that 
can  pass  into  literature  from  his  writings. 

Four  years  ago  to-night,  on  one  of  those  high 
critical  moments  in  history  when  great  issues  are 
determined,  when  the  powers  of  right  and  wrong 
are  mustered  for  conflict,  and  it  lies  with  one  man 
to  give  a  casting  vote,  —  Mr.  Webster,  most  unex 
pectedly,  threw  his  whole  weight  on  the  side  of 
Slavery,  and  caused  by  his  personal  and  official 
authority  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill. 

It  is  remarked  of  the  Americans  that  they  value 
dexterity  too  much,  and  honor  too  little ;  that  they 


212  LECTURE  ON  THE 

think  they  praise  a  man  more  by  saying  that  he  is 
"  smart  "  than  by  saying  that  he  is  right.  Whether 
the  defect  be  national  or  not,  it  is  the  defect  and 
calamity  of  Mr.  Webster ;  and  it  is  so  far  true  of 
Ms  countrymen,  namely,  that  the  appeal  is  sure  to 
be  made  to  his  physical  and  mental  ability  when 
his  character  is  assailed.  JHis  speeches  on  the 
seventh  of  March,  and  at  Albany,  at  Buffalo,  at 
Syracuse  and  Boston  are  cited  in  justification. 
And  Mr.  Webster's  literary  editor  believes  that  it 
was  his  wish  to  rest  his  fame  on  the  speech  of  the 
seventh  of  March.  Now,  though  I  have  my  own 
opinions  on  this  seventh  of  March  discourse  and 
those  others,  and  think  them  very  transparent  and 
very  open  to  criticism,  —  yet  the  secondary  merits 
of  a  speech,  namely,  its  logic,  its  illustrations,  its 
points,  etc.,  are  not  here  in  question.  f(  Nobody 
doubts  that  Daniel  Webster  could  make  a  good 
speech.  Nobody  doubts  that  there  were  good  and 
plausible  things  to  be  said  on  the  part  of  the  South. 
But  this  is  not  a  question  of  ingenuity,  not  a  ques 
tion  of  syllogisms,  but  of  sides.  How  came  he 
there?  y 

There  are  always  texts  and  thoughts  and  argu 
ments.  But  it  is  the  genius  and  temper  of  the 
man  which  decides  whether  he  will  stand  for  right 
or  for  might.  Who  doubts  the  power  of  any  fluent 
debater  to  defend  either  of  our  political  parties,  or 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  213 

any  client  in  our  courts  ?  There  was  the  same  law 
in  England  for  Jeffries  and  Talbot  and  Yorke  to 
read  slavery  out  of,  and  for  Lord  Mansfield  to  read 
freedom.  And  in  this  country  one  sees  that  there 
is  always  margin  enough  in  the  statute  for  a  liberal 
judge  to  read  one  way  and  a  servile  judge  another. 

But  the  question  which  History  will  ask  is 
broader.  In  the  final  hour  when  he  was  forced  by 
the  peremptory  necessity  of  the  closing  armies  to 
take  a  side,  —  did  he  take  the  part  of  great  princi 
ples,  the  side  of  humanity  and  justice,  or  the  side 
of  abuse  and  oppression  and  chaos  ? 

Mr.  Webster  decided  for  Slavery,  and  that,  when 
the  aspect  of  the  institution  was  no  longer  doubt 
ful,  no  longer  feeble  and  apologetic  and  proposing 
soon  to  end  itself,  but  when  it  was  strong,  aggres 
sive,  and  threatening  an  illimitable  increase.  He 
listened  to  State  reasons  and  hopes,  and  left,  with 
much  complacency  we  are  told,  the  testament  of 
his  speech  to  the  astonished  State  of  Massachusetts, 
vcra  pro  gratis  ;  a  ghastly  result  of  all  those  years 
of  experience  in  affairs,  this,  that  there  was  noth 
ing  better  for  the  foremost  American  man  to  tell 
his  countrymen  than  that  Slavery  was  now  at  that 
strength  that  they  must  beat  down  their  conscience 
and  become  kidnappers  for  it. 

This  was  like  the  doleful  speech  falsely  ascribed 
to  the  patriot  Brutus :  "  Virtue,  I  have  followed 


214  LECTURE  ON  THE 

thee  through  life,  and  I  find  thee  but  a  shadow." 
Here  was  a  question  of  an  immoral  law ;  a  question 
agitated  for  ages,  and  settled  always  in  the  same 
way  by  every  great  jurist,  that  an  immoral  law  can 
not  be  valid.  Cicero,  Grotius,  Coke,  Blackstone, 
Burlamaqui,  Vattel,  Burke,  Jefferson,  do  all  affirm 
this,  and  I  cite  them,  not  that  they  can  give  evi 
dence  to  what  is  indisputable,  but  because,  though 
lawyers  and  practical  statesmen,  the  habit  of  their 
profession  did  not  hide  from  them  that  this  truth 
was  the  foundation  of  States. 

Here  was  the  question,  Are  you  for  man  and  for 
the  good  of  man ;  or  are  you  for  the  hurt  and  harm 
of  man  ?  It  was  question  whether  man  shall  be 
treated  as  leather  ?  whether  the  Negroes  shall  be  as 
the  Indians  were  in  Spanish  America,  a  piece  of 
money  ?  Whether  this  system,  which  is  a  kind  of 
mill  or  factory  for  converting  men  into  monkeys, 
shall  be  upheld  and  enlarged  ?  And  Mr.  Webster 
and  the  country  went  for  the  application  to  these 
poor  men  of  quadruped  law. 

People  were  expecting  a  totally  different  course 
from  Mr.  Webster.  If  any  man  had  in  that  hour 
possessed  the  weight  with  the  country  which  he  had 
acquired,  he  could  have  brought  the  whole  country 
to  its  senses.  But  not  a  moment's  pause  was  al 
lowed.  Angry  parties  went  from  bad  to  worse, 
and  the  decision  of  Webster  was  accompanied  with 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  215 

everything  offensive  to  freedom  and  good  morals. 
There  was  something  like  an  attempt  to  debauch 
the  moral  sentiment  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  youth. 
Burke  said  he  "  would  pardon  something  to  the 
spirit  of  liberty."  But  by  Mr.  Webster  the  oppo 
sition  to  the  law  was  sharply  called  treason,  and 
prosecuted  so.  He  told  the  people  at  Boston  "  they 
must  conquer  their  prejudices  ;  "  that  "  agitation 
of  the  subject  of  Slavery  must  be  suppressed."  He 
did  as  immoral  men  usually  do,  made  very  low 
bows  to  the  Christian  Church,  and  went  through 
all  the  Sunday  decorums  ;  but  when  allusion  was 
made  to  the  question  of  duty  and  the  sanctions  of 
morality,  he  very  frankly  said,  at  Albany,  "  Some 
higher  law,  something  existing  somewhere  between 
here  and  the  third  heaven,  —  I  do  not  know  where." 
And  if  the  reporters  say  true,  this  wretched  athe 
ism  found  some  laughter  in  the  company. 

I  said  I  had  never  in  my  life  up  to  this  time  suf 
fered  from  the  Slave  Institution.  Slavery  in  Vir 
ginia  or  Carolina  was  like  Slavery  in  Africa  or  the 
Feejees,  for  me.  There  was  an  old  fugitive  law, 
but  it  had  become  or  was  fast  becoming  a  dead  let 
ter,  and,  by  the  genius  and  laws  of  Massachusetts, 
inoperative.  The  new  Bill  made  it  operative,  re 
quired  me  to  hunt  slaves,  and  it  found  citizens  in 
Massachusetts  willing  to  act  as  judges  and  captors. 
Moreover,  it  discloses  the  secret  of  the  new  times, 


216  LECTURE  ON  THE 

that  Slavery  was  no  longer  mendicant,  but  was  be 
come  aggressive  and  dangerous. 

The  way  in  which  the  country  was  dragged  to 
consent  to  this,  and  the  disastrous  defection  (on 
the  miserable  cry  of  Union)  of  the  men  of  letters, 
of  the  colleges,  of  educated  men,  nay,  of  some 
preachers  of  religion,  —  was  the  darkest  passage  in 
the  history.  It  showed  that  our  prosperity  had 
hurt  us,  and  that  we  could  not  be  shocked  by  crime. 
It  showed  that  the  old  religion  and  the  sense  of  the 
right  had  faded  and  gone  out ;  that  while  we  reck 
oned  ourselves  a  highly  cultivated  nation,  our  bel 
lies  had  run  away  with  our  brains,  and  the  princi 
ples  of  culture  and  progress  did  not  exist. 

For  I  suppose  that  liberty  is  an  accurate  index, 
in  men  and  nations,  of  general  progress.  The  the 
ory  of  personal  liberty  must  always  appeal  to  the 
most  refined  communities  and  to  the  men  of  the 
rarest  perception  and  of  delicate  moral  sense.  For 
there  are  rights  which  rest  on  the  finest  sense  of 
justice,  and,  with  every  degree  of  civility,  it  will  be 
more  truly  felt  and  defined.  A  barbarous  tribe  of 
good  stock  will,  by  means  of  their  best  heads,  se 
cure  substantial  liberty.  But  where  there  is  any 
weakness  in  a  race,  and  it  becomes  in  a  degree 
matter  of  concession  and  protection  from  their 
stronger  neighbors,  the  incompatibility  and  offen- 
siveness  of  the  wronor  will  of  course  be  most  evi- 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  217 

dent  to  the  most  cultivated.  For  it  is,  —  is  it  not  ? 
—  the  essence  of  courtesy,  of  politeness,  of  religion, 
of  love,  to  prefer  another,  to  postpone  oneself,  to 
protect  another  from  oneself  ?  That  is  the  distinc 
tion  of  the  gentleman,  to  defend  the  weak  and  re 
dress  the  injured,  as  it  is  of  the  savage  and  the 
brutal  to  usurp  and  use  others. 

In  Massachusetts,  as  we  all  know,  there  has  al 
ways  existed  a  predominant  conservative  spirit, 
We  have  more  money  and  value  of  every  kind  than 
other  people,  and  wish  to  keep  them.  The  plea  on 
which  freedom  was  resisted  was  Union.  I  went  to 
certain  serious  men,  who  had  a  little  more  reason 
than  the  rest,  and  inquired  why  they  took  this  part? 
They  answered  that  they  had  110  confidence  in  their 
strength  to  resist  the  Democratic  party ;  that  they 
saw  plainly  that  all  was  going  to  the  utmost  verge 
of  licence  ;  each  was  vying  with  his  neighbor  to 
lead  the  party,  by  proposing  the  worst  measure,  and 
they  threw  themselves  on  the  extreme  conservatism, 
as  a  drag  on  the  wheel :  that  they  knew  Cuba  would 
be  had,  and  Mexico  would  be  had,  and  they  stood 
stiffly  on  conservatism,  and  as  near  to  monarchy  as 
they  could,  only  to  moderate  the  velocity  with  which 
the  car  was  running  down  the  precipice.  In  short, 
their  theory  was  despair ;  the  Whig  wisdom  was 
only  reprieve,  a  waiting  to  be  last  devoured.  They 
side  with  Carolina,  or  with  Arkansas,  only  to  make 


218  LECTURE   ON  THE 

a  show  of  Whig  strength,  wherewith  to  resist  a 
little  longer  this  general  ruin. 

I  have  a  respect  for  conservatism.  I  know  how 
deeply  founded  it  is  in  our  nature,  and  how  idle 
are  all  attempts  to  shake  ourselves  free  from  it. 
We  are  all  conservatives,  half  Whig,  half  Demo 
crat,  in  our  essences:  and  might  as  well  try  to 
jump  out  of  our  skins  as  to  escape  from  our  Whig- 
gery.  There  are  two  forces  in  Nature,  by  whose 
antagonism  we  exist ;  the  power  of  Fate,  Fortune, 
the  laws  of  the  world,  the  order  of  things,  or  how 
ever  else  we  choose  to  phrase  it,  the  material  neces 
sities,  on  the  one  hand,  —  and  Will  or  Duty  or 
Freedom  on  the  other. 

May  and  Must,  and  the  sense  of  right  and  duty, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  material  necessities  on 
the  other  :  May  and  Must.  In  vulgar  politics  the 
Whig  goes  for  what  has  been,  for  the  old  necessi 
ties,  —  the  Musts.  The  reformer  goes  for  the  Bet 
ter,  for  the  ideal  good,  for  the  Mays.  But  each  of 
these  parties  must  of  necessity  take  in,  in  some 
measure,  the  principles  of  the  other.  Each  wishes 
to  cover  the  whole  ground  ;  to  hold  fast  and  to  ad 
vance.  Only,  one  lays  the  emphasis  on  keeping, 
and  the  other  on  advancing.  I  too  think  the  musts 
are  a  safe  company  to  follow,  and  even  agreeable. 
But  if  we  are  Whigs,  let  us  be  Whigs  of  nature 
and  science,  and  so  for  all  the  necessities.  Let  us 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  219 

know  that  over  and  above  all  the  musts  of  poverty 
and  appetite  is  the  instinct  of  man  to  rise,  and  the 
instinct  to  love  and  help  his  brother. 

Now,  Gentlemen,  I  think  we  have  in  this  hour 
instruction  again  in  the  simplest  lesson.  Events 
roll,  millions  of  men  are  engaged,  and  the  result  is 
the  enforcing  of  some  of  those  first  commandments 
which  we  heard  in  the  nursery.  We  never  get  be 
yond  our  first  lesson,  for,  really,  the  world  exists, 
as  I  understand  it,  to  teach  the  science  of  liberty, 
which  begins  with  liberty  from  fear. 

The  events  of  this  month  are  teaching  one  thing 
plain  and  clear,  the  worthlessness  of  good  tools  to 
bad  workmen ;  that  official  papers  are  of  no  use  ', 
resolutions  of  public  meetings,  platforms  of  conven 
tions,  no,  nor  laws,  nor  constitutions,  any  more. 
These  are  all  declaratory  of  the  will  of  the  moment, 
and  are  passed  with  more  levity  and  on  grounds  far 
less  honorable  than  ordinary  business  transactions 
of  the  street. 

You  relied  on  the  constitution.  It  has  not  the 
word  slave  in  it;  and  very  good  argument  has 
shown  that  it  would  not  warrant  the  crimes  that  are 
done  under  it ;  that,  with  provisions  so  vague  for 
an  object  not  named,  and  which  could  not  be  availed 
of  to  claim  a  barrel  of  sugar  or  a  barrel  of  corn,  — 
the  robbing  of  a  man  and  of  all  his  posterity  is  ef 
fected.  You  relied  on  the  Supreme  Court.  The 


220  LECTURE  ON  THE 

law  was  right,  excellent  law  for  the  lambs.  But 
what  if  unhappily  the  judges  were  chosen  from  the 
wolves,  and  give  to  all  the  lav/  a  wolfish  interpreta 
tion  ?  You  relied  on  the  Missouri  Compromise. 
That  is  ridden  over.  You  relied  on  State  sover 
eignty  in  the  Free  States  to  protect  their  citizens. 
They  are  driven  with  contempt  out  of  the  courts 
and  out  of  the  territory  of  the  Slave  States,  —  if 
they  are  so  happy  as  to  get  out  with  their  lives,  — 
and  now  you  relied  on  these  dismal  guaranties  in 
famously  made  in  1850 ;  and,  before  the  body  of 
Webster  is  yet  crumbled,  it  is  found  that  they  have 
crumbled.  This  eternal  monument  of  his  fame  and 
of  the  Union  is  rotten  in  four  years.  They  are  no 
guaranty  to  the  Free  States.  They  are  a  guaranty 
to  the  Slave  States  that,  as  they  have  hitherto  met 
with  no  repulse,  they  shall  meet  with  none. 

I  fear  there  is  no  reliance  to  be  put  on  any  kind 
or  form  of  covenant,  no,  not  on  sacred  forms,  none 
on  churches,  none  on  bibles.  For  one  would  have 
said  that  a  Christian  would  not  keep  slaves ;  —  but 
the  Christians  keep  slaves.  Of  course  they  will  not 
dare  to  read  the  Bible  ?  Won't  they  ?  They  quote 
the  Bible,  quote  Paul,  quote  Christ  to  justify  slav 
ery.  If  slavery  is  good,  then  is  lying,  theft,  arson, 
homicide,  each  and  all  good,  and  to  be  maintained 
by  Union  societies. 

These  things  show  that  no  forms,  neither  consti- 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  221 

tutlons,  nor  laws,  nor  covenants,  nor  churches,  nor 
bibles,  are  of  any  use  in  themselves.  The  Devil 
nestles  comfortably  into  them  all.  There  is  no  help 
but  in  the  head  and  heart  and  hamstrings  of  a  man. 
Covenants  are  of  no  use  without  honest  men  to  keep 
them  ;  laws  of  none,  but  with  loyal  citizens  to  obey 
them.  To  interpret  Christ  it  needs  Christ  in  the 
heart.  The  teachings  of  the  Spirit  can  be  appre 
hended  only  by  the  same  spirit  that  gave  them 
forth.  To  make  good  the  cause  of  Freedom,  you 
must  draw  off  from  all  foolish  trust  in  others.  You 
must  be  citadels  and  warriors,  yourselves,  declara 
tions  of  Independence,  the  charter,  the  battle  and 
the  victory.  Cromwell  said,  "  We  can  only  resist 
the  superior  training  of  the  King's  soldiers,  by  en 
listing  godly  men."  And  no  man  has  a  right  to 
hope  that  the  laws  of  New  York  will  defend  him 
from  the  contamination  of  slaves  another  day  until 
he  has  made  up  his  mind  that  he  will  not  owe  his 
protection  to  the  laws  of  New  York,  but  to  his  own 
sense  and  spirit.  Then  he  protects  New  York.  He 
only  who  is  able  to  stand  alone  is  qualified  for  so 
ciety.  And  that  I  understand  to  be  the  end  for 
which  a  soul  exists  in  this  world,  —  to  be  himself 
the  counterbalance  of  all  falsehood  and  all  wrong. 
"  The  army  of  unright  is  encamped  from  pole  to 
pole,  but  the  road  of  victory  is  known  to  the  just." 
Everything  may  be  taken  away ;  he  may  be  poor. 


222  LECTURE  ON  THE 

he  may  be  houseless,  yet  he  will  know  out  of  his 
arms  to  make  a  pillow,  and  out  of  his  breast  a  bol 
ster.  Why  have  the  minority  no  influence  ?  Be 
cause  they  have  not  a  real  minority  of  one. 

I  conceive  that  thus  to  detach  a  man  and  make 
him  feel  that  he  is  to  owe  all  to  himself,  is  the  way 
to  make  him  strong  and  rich ;  and  here  the  opti 
mist  must  find,  if  anywhere,  the  benefit  of  Slavery. 
We  have  many  teachers  ;  we  are  in  this  world  for 
culture,  to  be  instructed  in  realities,  in  the  laws  of 
moral  and  intelligent  nature ;  and  our  education  is 
not  conducted  by  toys  and  luxuries,  but  by  austere 
and  rugged  masters,  by  poverty,  solitude,  passions, 
War,  Slavery ;  to  know  that  Paradise  is  under  the 
shadow  of  swords  ;  that  divine  sentiments  which 
are  always  soliciting  us  are  breathed  into  us  from 
on  high,  and  are  an  offset  to  a  Universe  of  suffer 
ing  and  crime ;  that  self-reliance,  the  height  and 
perfection  of  man,  is  reliance  on  God.  The  in 
sight  of  the  religious  sentiment  will  disclose  to  him 
unexpected  aids  in  the  nature  of  things.  The  Per 
sian  Saadi  said,  "  Beware  of  hurting  the  orphan. 
When  the  orphan  sets  a-crying,  the  throne  of  the 
Almighty  is  rocked  from  side  to  side." 

Whenever  a  man  has  come  to  this  mind,  that 
there  is  no  Church  for  him  but  his  believing 
prayer ;  no  Constitution  but  his  dealing  well  and 
justly  with  his  neighbor ;  no  liberty  but  his  invinci- 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  223 

ble  will  to  do  right,  — then  certain  aids  and  allies 
will  promptly  appear :  for  tlie  constitution  of  the 
Universe  is  on  his  side.  It  is  of  no  use  to  vote 
down  gravitation  or  morals.  What  is  useful  will 
last,  whilst  that  which  is  hurtful  to  the  world  will 
sink  beneath  all  the  opposing  forces  which  it  must 
exasperate.  The  terror  which  the  Marseillaise 
struck  into  oppression,  it  thunders  again  to-day, 
Tout  est  soldat  pour  vous  combattre.  Everything 
that  can  wralk  turns  soldier  to  fight  you  down.  The 
end  for  which  man  was  made  is  not  crime  in  any 
form,  and  a  man  cannot  steal  without  incurring 
the  penalties  of  the  thief,  though  all  the  legislatures 
vote  that  it  is  virtuous,  and  though  there  be  a  gen 
eral  conspiracy  among  scholars  and  official  persons 
to  hold  him  up,  and  to  say,  "  Nothing  is  good  but 
stealing."  A  man  who  commits  a  crime  defeats 
the  end  of  his  existence.  He  \vas  created  for  ben 
efit,  and  he  exists  for  harm ;  and  as  well  -  doing 
makes  power  and  wisdom,  ill -doing  takes  them 
away.  A  man  who  steals  another  man's  labor 
steals  away  his  own  faculties  ;  his  integrity,  his  hu 
manity  is  flowing  away  from  him.  The_  habit  of 
oppression  cuts  out  the  moral  eyes,  and,  though  the 
intellect  goes  on  simulating  the  moral  as  before,  its 
sanity  is  gradually  destroyed.  It  takes  away  the 
presentiments. 

I  suppose  in  general  this  is  allowed,  that  if  you 


224  LECTURE  ON  THE 

have  a  nice  question  of  right  and  wrong,  you  would 
not  go  with  it  to  Louis  Napoleon,  or  to  a  political 
hack ;  or  to  a  slave-driver.  The  habit  of  mind  of 
traders  in  power  would  not  be  esteemed  favorable 
to  delicate  moral  perception.  American  slavery 
affords  no  exception  to  this  rule.  No  excess  of 
good  nature  or  of  tenderness  in  individuals  has 
been  able  to  give  a  new  character  to  the  system,  to 
tear  down  the  whipping-house.  The  plea  that  the 
negro  is  an  inferior  race  sounds  very  oddly  in  my 
ear  in  the  mouth  of  a  slave-holder.  "  The  masters 
of  slaves  seem  generally  anxious  to  prove  that  they 
are  not  of  a  race  superior  in  any  noble  quality  to 
the  meanest  of  their  bondmen."  And  indeed  when 
the  Southerner  points  to  the  anatomy  of  the  negro, 
and  talks  of  chimpanzee,  —  I  recall  Montesquieu's 
remark,  "  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  negroes  are 
men,  lest  it  should  turn  out  that  whites  are  not." 

Slavery  is  disheartening ;  but  Nature  is  not  so 
helpless  but  it  can  rid  itself  at  last  of  every  wrong. 
But  the  spasms  of  Nature  are  centuries  and  ages, 
and  will  tax  the  faith  of  short-lived  men.  Slowly, 
slowly  the  Avenger  comes,  but  comes  surely.  The 
proverbs  of  the  nations  affirm  these  delays,  but  af 
firm  the  arrival.  They  say,  "God  may  consent, 
but  not  forever."  The  delay  of  the  Divine  Justice 
—  this  was  the  meaning  and  soul  of  the  Greek 
Tragedy ;  this  the  soul  of  their  religion.  "  There 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  225 

has  come,  too,  one  to  whom  lurking  warfare  is  dear, 
Retribution,  with  a  soul  full  of  wiles ;  a  violator  of 
hospitality ;  guileful  without  the  guilt  of  guile ; 
limping,  late  in  her  arrival."  They  said  of  the 
happiness  of  the  unjust,  that  "  at  its  close  it  begets 
itself  an  offspring  and  does  not  die  childless,  and 
instead  of  good  fortune,  there  sprouts  forth  for  pos 
terity  ever-ravening  calamity : " 

"  For  evil  word  shall  evil  word  be  said, 
For  murder-stroke  a  murder-stroke  be  paid. 
Who  smites  must  smart." 

These  delays,  you  see  them  now  in  the  temper  of 
the  times.  The  national  spirit  in  this  country  is  so 
drowsy,  pre-occupied  with  interest,  deaf  to  principle. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  proud  and  strong  and  self 
ish.^1  'They  believe  only  in  Anglo-Saxons.  In  1825 
Greece  found  America  deaf,  Poland  found  America 
deaf,  Italy  and  Hungary  found  her  deaf.  England 
maintains  trade,  not  liberty ;  stands  against  Greece ; 
against  Hungary ;  against  Schleswig  Holstein ; 
against  the  French  Republic,  whilst  it  was  a  re 
public. 

To  faint  hearts  the  times  offer  no  invitation,  and 
torpor  exists  here  throughout  the  active  classes  on 
the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  and  its  appalling 
aggressions.  Yes,  that  is  the  stern  edict  of  Provi 
dence,  that  liberty  shall  be  no  hasty  fruit,  but  that 
event  on  event,  population  on  population,  age  on 

VOL.   XI.  15 


226  LECTURE  ON  THE 

age,  shall  cast  itself  into  the  opposite  scale,  and  not 
until  liberty  has  slowly  accumulated  weight  enough 
to  countervail  and  preponderate  against  all  this, 
can  the  sufficient  recoil  come.  All  the  great  cities, 
all  the  refined  circles,  all  the  statesmen,  Guizot, 
Palmerston,  Webster,  Calhoun,  are  sure  to  be 
found  befriending  liberty  with  their  words,  and 
crushing  it  with  their  votes.  Liberty  is  never 
cheap.  It  is  made  difficult,  because  freedom  is  the 
accomplishment  and  perfectness  of  man.  He  is  a 
finished  man ;  earning  and  bestowing  good ;  equal 
to  the  world  ;  at  home  in  nature  and  dignifying 
that ;  the  sun  does  not  see  anything  nobler,  and 
has  nothing  to  teach  him.  Therefore  mountains 
of  difficulty  must  be  surmounted,  stern  trials  met, 
wiles  of  seduction,  dangers,  healed  by  a  quarantine 
of  calamities  to  measure  his  strength  before  he  dare 
say,  I  am  free. 

Whilst  the  inconsistency  of  slavery  with -the  prin 
ciples  on  which  the  world  is  built  guarantees  its 
downfall,  I  own  that  the  patience  it  requires  is 
almost  too  sublime  for  mortals,  and  seems  to  de 
mand  of  us  more  than  mere  hoping.  And  when 
one  sees  how  fast  the  rot  spreads,  —  it  is  growing 
serious  —  I  think  we  demand  of  superior  men  that 
they  be  superior  in  this, — that  the  mind  and  the 
virtue  shall  give  their  verdict  in  their  day,  and  ac 
celerate  so  far  the  progress  of  civilization.  Posses- 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  227 

sion  is  sure  to  throw  its  stupid  strength  for  exist 
ing  power,  and  appetite  and  ambition  will  go  for 
that.  Let  the  aid  of  virtue,  intelligence  and  educa 
tion  be  cast  where  they  rightfully  belong.  They 
are  organically  ours.  Let  them  be  loyal  to  their 
own.  I  wish  to  see  the  instructed  class  here  know 
their  own  flag,  and  not  fire. on  their  comrades.  We 
should  not  forgive  the  clergy  for  taking  on  every 
issue  the  immoral  side ;  nor  the  Bench,  if  it  put 
itself  on  the  side  of  the  culprit ;  nor  the  Govern 
ment,  if  it  sustain  the  mob  against  the  laws. 

It  is  a  potent  support  and  ally  to  a  brave  man 
standing  single,  or  with  a  few,  for  the  right,  and 
out-voted  and  ostracized,  to  know  that  better  men 
in  other  parts  of  the  country  appreciate  the  service 
and  will  rightly  report  him  to  his  own  and  the 
next  age.  Without  this  assurance,  he  will  sooner 
sink.  He  may  well  say,  If  my  countrymen  do  not 
care  to  be  defended,  I  too  will  decline  the  contro 
versy,  from  which  I  only  reap  invectives  and  ha 
tred.  Yet  the  lovers  of  liberty  may  with  reason 
tax  the  coldness  and  indifferentism  of  scholars  and 
literary  men.  They  are  lovers  of  liberty  in  Greece 
and  Kome  and  in  the  English  Commonwealth,  but 
they  are  lukewarm  lovers  of  the  liberty  of  America 
in  1854.  The  Universities  are  not,  as  in  Hobbes's 
time,  "  the  core  of  rebellion,"  no,  but  the  seat  of  in 
ertness.  They  have  forgotten  their  allegiance  to 


228  LECTURE  ON  THE 

the  Muse,  and  grown  worldly  and  political.  I  lis 
tened,  lately,  on  one  of  those  occasions  when  the 
University  chooses  one  of  its  distinguished  sons 
returning  from  the  political  arena,  believing  that 
Senators  and  Statesmen  would  be  glad  to  throw  off 
the  harness  and  to  dip  again  in  the  Castalian  pools. 
But  if  audiences  forget  themselves,  statesmen  do 
not.  The  low  bows  to  all  the  crockery  gods  of  the 
day  were  duly  made :  —  only  in  one  part  of  the 
discourse  the  orator  allowed  to  transpire  rather 
against  his  will  a  little  sober  sense.  It  was  this. 
'  I  am  as  you  see  a  man  virtuously  inclined,  and 
only  corrupted  by  my  profession  of  politics.  I 
should  prefer  the  right  side.  You,  gentlemen  of 
these  literary  and  scientific  schools,  and  the  impor 
tant  class  you  represent,  have  the  power  to  make 
your  verdict  clear  and  prevailing.  Had  you  done 
l=>o,  you  would  have  found  me  its  glad  organ  and 
champion.  Abstractly,  I  should  have  preferred 
that  side.  But  you  have  not  done  it.  You  have 
not  spoken  out.  You  have  failed  to  arm  me.  I 
can  only  deal  with  masses  as  I  find  them.  Ab 
stractions  are  not  for  me.  I  go  then  for  such 
parties  and  opinions  as  have  provided  me  with  a 
working  apparatus.  I  give  you  my  word,  not  with 
out  regret,  that  I  was  first  for  you ;  and  though  I 
am  now  to  deny  and  condemn  you,  you  see  it  is 
not  my  will  but  the  party  necessity.'  Having 


FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.  229 

made  this  manifesto  and  professed  his  adoration 
for  liberty  in  the  time  of  his  grandfathers,  he  pro 
ceeded  with  his  work  of  denouncing  freedom  and 
freemen  at  the  present  day,  much  in  the  tone  and 
spirit  in  which  Lord  Bacon  prosecuted  his  bene 
factor  Essex.  He  denounced  every  name  and  as 
pect  under  which  liberty  and  progress  dare  show 
themselves  in  this  age  and  country,  but  with  a  lin 
gering  conscience  which  qualified  each  sentence 
with  a  recommendation  to  mercy. 

But  I  put  it  to  every  noble  and  generous  spirit, 
to  every  poetic,  every  heroic,  every  religious  heart, 
that  not  so  is  our  learning,  our  education,  our  po 
etry,  our  worship  to  be  declared.  Liberty  is  ag 
gressive,  Liberty  is  the  Crusade  of  all  brave  and 
conscientious  men,  the  Epic  Poetry,  the  new  relig 
ion,  the  chivalry  of  all  gentlemen.  This  is  the  op 
pressed  Lady  whom  true  knights  on  their  oath  and 
honor  must  rescue  and  save. 

Now  at  last  we  are  disenchanted  and  shall  have 
no  more  false  hopes.  I  respect  the  Anti-Slavery 
Society.  It  is  the  Cassandra  that  has  foretold  all 
that  has  befallen,  fact  for  fact,  years  ago ;  foretold 
all,  and  no  man  laid  it  to  heart.  It  seemed,  as  the 
Turks  say,  "  Fate  makes  that  a  man  should  not  be 
lieve  his  own  eyes."  But  the  Fugitive  Law  did 
much  to  unglue  the  eyes  of  men,  and  now  the  Ne 
braska  Bill  leaves  us  staring.  The  Anti-Slavery 


230  THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 

Society  will  add  many  members  this  year.  The 
Whig  Party  will  join  it :  the  Democrats  will  join 
it.  The  population  of  the  Free  States  will  join  it. 
I  doubt  not,  at  last,  the  Slave  States  will  join  it. 
But  be  that  sooner  or  later,  and  whoever  comes  or 
stays  away,  I  hope  we  have  reached  the  end  of  our 
unbelief,  have  come  to  a  belief  that  there  is  a  di 
vine  Providence  in  the  world,  which  will  not  save 
us  but  through  our  own  co-operation. 


THE  ASSAULT  UPON  MR.   SUMNER. 

SPEECH  AT   A   MEETING  OF    THE   CITIZENS   IN   THE  TOWN   HALL, 
IN  CONCORD,   MAY  26,   1856. 


THE  ASSAULT  UPON  ME.  SUMNER. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  :  —  I  sympathize  heartily  with 
the  spirit  of  the  resolutions.  The  events  of  the  last 
few  years  and  months  and  days  have  taught  us  the 
lessons  of  centuries.  I  do  not  see  how  a  barbarous 
community  and  a  civilized  community  can  constitute 
one  State.  I  think  we  must  get  rid  of  slavery,  or 
we  must  get  rid  of  freedom.  Life  has  not  parity 
of  value  in  the  free  state  and  in  the  slave  state.  In 
one,  it  is  adorned  with  education,  with  skilful  la 
bor,  with  arts,  with  long  prospective  interests,  with 
sacred  family  ties,  with  honor  and  justice.  In  the 
other,  life  is  a  fever ;  man  is  an  animal,  given  to 
pleasure,  frivolous,  irritable,  spending  his  days  in 
hunting  and  practising  with  deadly  weapons  to  de 
fend  himself  against  his  slaves  and  against  his  com- 
.panions  brought  up  in  the  same  idle  and  danger 
ous  way.  Such  people  live  for  the  moment,  they 
have  properly  no  future,  and  readily  risk  on  every 
passion  a  life  which  is  of  small  value  to  themselves 
or  to  others.  Many  years  ago,  when  Mr.  Webster 
was  challenged  in  Washington  to  a  duel  by  one  of 


234  SPEECH  ON  THE 

these  madcaps,  his  friends  came  forward  with 
prompt  good  sense  and  said  such  a  thing  was  not 
to  be  thought  of  ;  Mr.  Webster's  life  was  the  prop 
erty  of  his  friends  and  of  the  whole  country,  and 
was  not  to  be  risked  on  the  turn  of  a  vagabond's 
ball.  Life  and  life  are  incommensurate.  The 
whole  State  of  South  Carolina  does  not  now  offer 
one  or  any  number  of  persons  who  are  to  be 
weighed  for  a  moment  in  the  scale  writh  such  a  per 
son  as  the  meanest  of  them  all  has  now  struck  down. 
The  very  conditions  of  the  game  must  always  be, 
—  the  worst  life  staked  against  the  best.  It  is  the 
best  whom  they  desire  to  kill.  It  is  only  when  they 
cannot  answer  your  reasons,  that  they  wish  to  knock 
you  down.  If,  therefore,  Massachusetts  could  send 
to  the  Senate  a  better  man  than  Mr.  Sumner,  his 
death  would  be  only  so  much  the  more  quick  and 
certain.  Now,  as  men's  bodily  strength,  or  skill 
with  knives  and  guns,  is  not  usually  in  proportion 
to  their  knowledge  and  mother-wit,  but  oftener  in 
the  inverse  ratio,  it  will  only  do  to  send  foolish  per 
sons  to  Washington,  if  you  wish  them  to  be  safe. 

The  outrage  is  the  more  shocking  from  the  singu 
larly  pure  character  of  its  victim.  Mr.  Simmer's 
position  is  exceptional  in  its  honor.  He  had  not 
taken  his  degrees  in  the  caucus  and  in  hack  politics. 
It  is  notorious  that,  in  the  long  time  when  his  elec 
tion  was  pending,  he  refused  to  take  a  single  step 


ASSAULT  UPON 'MR.  SUMNER.  235 

to  secure  it.  He  would  not  so  much  as  go  up  to 
the  State  House  to  shake  hands  with  this  or  that 
person  whose  good  will  was  reckoned  important  by 
his  friends.  He  was  elected.  It  was  a  homage  to 
character  and  talent.  In  Congress,  he  did  not  rush 
into  party  position.  He  sat  long  silent  and  studi 
ous.  His  friends,  I  remember,  were  told  that  they 
would  find  Sumner  a  man  of  the  world  like  the 
rest ;  4  't  is  quite  impossible  to  be  at  Washington 
and  not  bend  ;  he  will  bend  as  the  rest  have  clone.' 
Well,  he  did  not  bend.  He  took  his  position  and 
kept  it.  He  meekly  bore  the  cold  shoulder  from 
some  of  his  New  England  colleagues,  the  hatred 
of  his  enemies,  the  pity  of  the  indifferent,  cheered 
by  the  love  and  respect  of  good  men  with  whom 
he  acted ;  and  has  stood  for  the  North,  a  little  in 
advance  of  all  the  North,  and  therefore  without 
adequate  support.  He  has  never  faltered  in  his 
maintenance  of  justice  and  freedom.  He  has  gone 
beyond  the  large  expectation  of  his  friends  in  his  in 
creasing  ability  and  his  manlier  tone.  I  have  heard 
that  some  of  his  political  friends  tax  him  with  indo 
lence  or  negligence  in  refusing  to  make  electioneer 
ing  speeches,  or  otherwise  to  bear  his  part  in  the 
labor  which  party-organization  requires.  I  say  it 
to  his  honor.  But  more  to  his  honor  are  the  faults 
which  his  enemies  lay  to  his  charge.  I  think,  sir, 
if  Mr.  Sumner  had  any  vices,  we  should  be  likely 


236  SPEECH  ON  THE 

to  hear  of  them.  They  have  fastened  their  eyes 
like  microscopes  for  five  years  on  every  act,  word, 
manner  and  movement,  to  find  a  flaw,  —  and  with 
what  result  ?  His  opponents  accuse  him  neither  of 
drunkenness,  nor  debauchery,  nor  job,  nor  specula 
tion,  nor  rapacity,  nor  personal  aims  of  any  kind. 
No ;  but  with  what  ?  Why,  beyond  this  charge, 
which  it  is  impossible  was  ever  sincerely  made,  that 
he  broke  over  the  proprieties  of  debate,  I  find  him 
accused  of  publishing  his  opinion  of  the  Nebraska 
conspiracy  in  a  letter  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  with  discourtesy.  Then,  that  he  is  an  abo 
litionist  ;  as  if  every  sane  human  being  were  not 
an  abolitionist,  or  a  believer  that  all  men  should  be 
free.  And  the  third  crime  he  stands  charged  with, 
is,  that  his  speeches  were  written  before  they  were 
spoken ;  which  of  course  must  be  true  in  Simmer's 
case,  as  it  was  true  of  Webster,  of  Adams,  of  Cal- 
houn,  of  Burke,  of  Chatham,  of  Demosthenes ;  of 
every  first-rate  speaker  that  ever  lived.  It  is  the 
high  compliment  he  pays  to  the  intelligence  of  the 
Senate  and  of  the  country.  When  the  same  re 
proach  was  cast  on  the  first  orator  of  ancient  times 
by  some  caviler  of  his  day,  he  said,  "  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  come  with  one  unconsidered  word  be 
fore  such  an  assembly."  Mr.  Chairman,  when  I 
think  of  these  most  small  faults  as  the  worst  which 
party  hatred  could  allege,  I  think  I  may  borrow 


ASSAULT  UPON  MR.  SUMNER.  237 

the  language  which  Bishop  Burnet  applied  to  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  and  say  that  Charles  Simmer  "  has 
the  whitest  soul  I  ever  knew." 

Well,  sir,  this  noble  head,  so  comely  and  so  wise, 
must  be  the  target  for  a  pair  of  bullies  to  beat  with 
clubs.  The  murderer's  brand  shall  stamp  their  fore 
heads  wherever  they  may  wander  in  the  earth.  But 
I  wish,  sir,  that  the  high  respects  of  this  meeting 
shall  be  expressed  to  Mr.  Simmer ;  that  a  copy  of 
the  resolutions  that  have  been  read  may  be  for 
warded  to  him.  I  wish  that  he  may  know  the  shud 
der  of  terror  which  ran  through  all  this  community 
011  the  first  tidings  of  this  brutal  attack.  Let  him 
hear  that  every  man  of  worth  in  New  England 
loves  his  virtues  ;  that  every  mother  thinks  of  him 
as  the  protector  of  families ;  that  every  friend  of 
freedom  thinks  him  the  friend  of  freedom.  And  if 
our  arms  at  this  distance  cannot  defend  him  from 
assassins,  we  confide  the  defence  of  a  life  so  pre 
cious,  to  all  honorable  men  and  true  patriots,  and 
to  the  Almighty  Maker  of  men. 


SPEECH 

AT  THE  KANSAS  RELIEF   MEETING  IN  CAMBRIDGE,  WEDNESDAY 
EVENING,  SEPTEMBER  10,  1856. 


SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS. 


I  REGRET,  with  all  this  company,  the  absence  of 
Mr.  Whitman  of  Kansas,  whose  narrative  was  to 
constitute  the  interest  of  this  meeting.  Mr.  Whit 
man  is  not  here ;  but  knowing,  as  we  all  do,  why 
he  is  not,  what  duties  kept  him  at  home,  he  is  more 
than  present.  His  vacant  chair  speaks  for  him. 
For  quite  other  reasons,  I  had  been  wiser  to  have 
stayed  at  home,  unskilled  as  I  am  to  address  a  po 
litical  meeting,  but  it  is  impossible  for  the  most  re 
cluse  to  extricate  himself  from  the  questions  of  the 
times. 

There  is  this  peculiarity  about  the  case  of  Kan 
sas,  that  all  the  right  is  on  one  side.  We  hear  the 
screams  of  hunted  wives  and  children  answered  by 
the  howl  of  the  butchers.  The  testimony  of  the 
telegraphs  from  St.  Louis  and  the  border  confirm 
the  worst  details.  The  printed  letters  of  the  bor 
der  ruffians  avow  the  facts.  When  pressed  to  look 
at  the  cause  of  the  mischief  in  the  Kansas  laws,  the 
President  falters  and  declines  the  discussion  ;  but 
his  supporters  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Cass,  Mr.  Geyer, 

VOL.  XI.  16 


242       SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS. 

Mr.  Hunter,  speak  out,  and  declare  the  intolerable 
atrocity  of  the  code.  It  is  a  maxim  that  all  party 
spirit  produces  the  incapacity  to  receive  natural  im 
pressions  from  facts  ;  and  our  recent  political  history 
has  abundantly  borne  out  the  maxim.  But  these  de 
tails  that  have  come  from  Kansas  are  so  horrible, 
that  the  hostile  press  have  but  one  word  in  reply, 
namely,  that  it  is  all  exaggeration,  't  is  an  Aboli 
tion  lie.  Do  the  Committee  of  Investigation  say 
that  the  outrages  have  been  overstated  ?  Does 
their  dismal  catalogue  of  private  tragedies  show  it  ? 
Do  the  private  letters  ?  Is  it  an  exaggeration,  that 
Mr.  Hopps  of  Somerville,  Mr.  Hoyt  of  Deerfield, 
Mr.  Jennison  of  Groton,  Mr.  Phillips  of  Berkshire, 
have  been  murdered?  That  Mr.  Robinson  of 
Fitchburg  has  been  imprisoned  ?  Rev.  Mr.  Nute 
of  Springfield  seized,  and  up  to  this  time  we  have 
no  tidings  of  his  fate  ? 

In  these  calamities  under  which  they  suffer,  and 
the  worse  which  threaten  them,  the  people  of  Kan 
sas  ask  for  bread,  clothes,  arms  and  men,  to  save 
them  alive,  and  enable  them  to  stand  against  these 
enemies  of  the  human  race.  They  have  a  right  to 
be  helped,  for  they  have  helped  themselves. 

This  aid  must  be  sent,  and  this  is  not  to  be  doled 
out  as  an  ordinary  charity ;  but  bestowed  up  to  the 
magnitude  of  the  want,  and,  as  has  been  elsewhere 
said,  "  on  the  scale  of  a  national  action."  I  think 


SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS.        243 

we  are  to  give  largely,  lavishly,  to  these  men. 
And  we  must  prepare  to  do  it.  We  must  learn  to 
do  with  less,  live  in  a  smaller  tenement,  sell  our 
apple-trees,  our  acres,  our  pleasant  houses.  I  know 
people  who  are  making  haste  to  reduce  their  ex 
penses  and  pay  their  debts,  not  with  a  view  to  new 
accumulations,  but  in  preparation  to  save  and  earn 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Kansas  emigrants. 

We  must  have  aid  from  individuals,  —  we  must 
also  have  aid  from  the  State.  I  know  that  the  last 
Legislature  refused  that  aid.  I  know  that  lawyers 
hesitate  on  technical  grounds,  and  wonder  what 
method  of  relief  the  Legislature  will  apply.  But 
I  submit  that,  in  a  case  like  this,  where  citizens  of 
Massachusetts,  legal  voters  here,  have  emigrated  to 
national  territory  under  the  sanction  of  every  law, 
and  are  then  set  on  by  highwaymen,  driven  from 
their  new  homes,  pillaged,  and  numbers  of  them 
killed  and  scalped,  and  the  whole  world  knows  that 
this  is  no  accidental  brawl,  but  a  systematic  war  to 
the  knife,  and  in  defiance  of  all  laws  and  liberties, 
I  submit  that  the  Governor  and  Legislature  should 
neither  slumber  nor  sleep  till  they  have  found  out 
how  to  send  effectual  aid  and  comfort  to  these  poor 
farmers,  or  else  should  resign  their  seats  to  those 
who  can.  But  first  let  them  hang  the  halls  of  the 
State  House  with  black  crape,  and  order  funeral 
service  to  be  said  there  for  the  citizens  whom  they 
were  unable  to  defend. 


244        SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS. 

We  stick  at  the  technical  difficulties.  I  think 
there  never  was  a  people  so  choked  and  stultified 
by  forms.  We  adore  the  forms  of  law,  instead  of 
making  them  vehicles  of  wisdom  and  justice.  I 
like  the  primary  assembly.  I  own  I  have  little  es 
teem  for  governments.  I  esteem  them  only  good 
in  the  moment  when  they  are  established.  I  set 
the  private  man  first.  He  only  who  is  able  to  stand 
alone  is  qualified  to  be  a  citizen.  Next  to  the  pri 
vate  man,  I  value  the  primary  assembly,  met  to 
watch  the  government  and  to  correct  it.  That  is 
the  theory  of  the  American  State,  that  it  exists  to 
execute  the  will  of  the  citizens,  is  always  responsi 
ble  to  them,  and  is  always  to  be  changed  when  it 
does  not.  First,  the  private  citizen,  then  the  pri 
mary  assembly,  and  the  government  last. 

In  this  country  for  the  last  few  years  the  govern 
ment  has  been  the  chief  obstruction  to  the  common 
weal.  Who  doubts  that  Kansas  would  have  been 
very  well  settled,  if  the  United  States  had  let  it 
alone  ?  The  government  armed  and  led  the  ruffians 
against  the  poor  farmers.  I  do  not  know  any  story 
so  gloomy  as  the  politics  of  this  country  for  the 
last  twenty  years,  centralizing  ever  more  manifestly 
round  one  spring,  and  that  a  vast  crime,  and  ever 
more  plainly,  until  it  is  notorious  that  all  promo 
tion,  power  and  policy  are  dictated  from  one  source, 
—  illustrating  the  fatal  effects  of  a  false  position 


SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS.        245 

to  demoralize  legislation  and  put  the  best  people 
always  at  a  disadvantage  ;  —  one  crime  always  pres 
ent,  always  to  be  varnished  over,  to  find  fine  names 
for ;  and  we  free-statesmen,  as  accomplices  to  the 
guilt,  ever  in  the  power  of  the  grand  offender. 

Language  has  lost  its  meaning  in  the  universal 
cant.  Representative  Government  is  really  mis- 
representative  ;  Union  is  a  conspiracy  against  the 
Northern  States  which  the  Northern  States  are  to 
have  the  privilege  of  paying  for ;  the  adding  of 
Cuba  and  Central  America  to  the  slave  marts  is 
enlarging  the  area  of  Freedom.  Manifest  Des 
tiny,  Democracy,  Freedom,,  fine  names  for  an  ugly 
thing.  They  call  it  otto  of  rose  and  lavender,  —  I 
call  it  bilge  water.  They  call  it  Chivalry  and 
Freedom  ;  I  call  it  the  stealing  all  the  earnings  of 
a  poor  man  and  the  earnings  of  his  little  girl  and 
boy,  and  the  earnings  of  all  that  shall  come  from 
him,  his  children's  children  forever. 

But  this  is  Union,  and  this  is  Democracy ;  and 
our  poor  people,  led  by  the  nose  by  these  fine 
words,  dance  and  sing,  ring  bells  and  fire  cannon, 
with  every  new  link  of  the  chain  which  is  forged 
for  their  limbs  by  the  plotters  in  the  Capitol. 

What  are  the  results  of  law  and  union  ?  There 
is  no  Union.  Can  any  citizen  of  Massachusetts 
travel  in  honor  through  Kentucky  and  Alabama 
and  speak  his  mind  ?  Or  can  any  citizen  of  the 


246        SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS. 

Southern  country  who  happens  to  think  kidnapping 
a  bad  thing,  say  so  ?  Let  Mr.  Underwood  of  Vir 
ginia  answer.  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  there  are 
no  men  in  Carolina  who  dissent  from,  the  popular 
sentiment  now  reigning  there?  It  must  happen, 
in  the  variety  of  human  opinions,  that  there  are 
dissenters.  They  are  silent  as  the  grave.  Are 
there  no  women  in  that  country,  —  women,  who  al 
ways  carry  the  conscience  of  a  people  ?  Yet  we 
have  not  heard  one  discordant  whisper. 

In  the  free  States,  we  give  a  snivelling  support 
to  slavery.  The  judges  give  cowardly  interpreta 
tions  to  the  lav/,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  known 
foundation  of  all  law,  that  every  immoral  statute 
is  void.  And  here  of  Kansas,  the  President  says : 
"  Let  the  complainants  go  to  the  courts  ;  "  though 
he  knows  that  when  the  poor  plundered  farmer 
comes  to  the  court,  he  finds  the  ringleader  who  has 
robbed  him,  dismounting  from  his  own  horse,  and 
unbuckling  his  knife  to  sit  as  his  judge. 

The  President  told  the  Kansas  Committee  that 
the  whole  difficulty  grew  from  "  the  factious  spirit 
of  the  Kansas  people,  respecting  institutions  which 
they  need  not  have  concerned  themselves  about." 
A  very  remarkable  speech  from  a  Democratic  Pres 
ident  to  his  fellow  citizens,  that  they  are  not  to 
concern  themselves  with  institutions  which  they 
alone  are  to  create  and  determine.  The  President 


SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS.        247 

is  a  lawyer,  and  should  know  the  statutes  of  the 
laud.  But  I  borrow  the  language  of  an  eminent 
man,  used  long  since,  with  far  less  occasion :  "  If 
that  be  law,  let  the  ploughshare  be  run  under  the 
foundations  of  the  Capitol ;  "  —  and  if  that  be  Gov 
ernment,  extirpation  is  the  only  cure. 

I  am  glad  to  see  that  the  terror  at  disunion  and 
anarchy  is  disappearing.  Massachusetts,  in  its  he 
roic  day,  had  no  government  —  was  an  anarchy. 
Every  man  stood  on  his  own  feet,  was  his  own  gov 
ernor  ;  and  there  was  no  breach  of  peace  from  Cape 
Cod  to  Mount  Hoosac.  California,  a  few  years 
ago,  by  the  testimony  of  all  people  at  that  time  in 
the  country,  had  the  best  government  that  ever  ex 
isted.  Pans  of  gold  lay  drying  outside  of  every 
man's  tent,  in  perfect  security.  The  land  was  meas 
ured  into  little  strips  of  a  few  feet  wide,  all  side  by 
side.  A  bit  of  ground  that  your  hand  could  cover 
was  worth  one  or  two  hundred  dollars,  on  the  edge 
of  your  strip ;  and  there  was  no  dispute.  Every 
man  throughout  the  country  was  armed  with  knife 
and  revolver,  and  it  was  known  that  instant  justice 
would  be  administered  to  each  offence,  and  perfect 
peace  reigned.  For  the  Saxon  man,  when  he  is 
well  awake,  is  not  a  pirate  but  a  citizen,  all  made 
of  hooks  and  eyes,  and  links  himself  naturally  to 
his  brothers,  as  bees  hook  themselves  to  one  an 
other  and  to  their  queen  in  a  loyal  swarm. 


248        SPEECH  ON  AFFAIRS  IN  KANSAS. 

But  the  hour  is  coming  when  the  strongest  will 
not  be  strong  enough.  A  harder  task  will  the  new 
revolution  of  the  nineteenth  century  be,  than  was 
the  revolution  of  the  eighteenth  century.  I  think 
the  American  Revolution  bought  its  glory  cheap. 
If  the  problem  was  new,  it  was  simple.  If  there 
were  few  people,  they  were  united,  and  the  enemy 
3,000  miles  off.  But  now,  vast  property,  gigantic 
interests,  family  connections,  webs  of  party,  cover 
the  land  with  a  network  that  immensely  multiplies 
the  dangers  of  war. 

Fellow  Citizens,  in  these  times  full  of  the  fate  of 
the  Republic,  I  think  the  towns  should  hold  town 
meetings,  and  resolve  themselves  into  Committees 
of  Safety,  go  into  permanent  sessions,  adjourning 
from  week  to  week,  from  month  to  month.  I  wish 
we  could  send  the  Sergeant-at-arms  to  stop  every 
American  who  is  about  to  leave  the  country.  Send 
home  every  one  who  is  abroad,  lest  they  should 
find  no  country  to  return  to.  Come  home  and  stay 
at  home,  while  there  is  a  country  to  save.  When 
it  is  lost  it  will  be  time  enough  then  for  any  who 
are  luckless  enough  to  remain  alive  to  gather  up 
their  clothes  and  depart  to  some  land  where  free 
dom  exists. 


REMARKS 


AT  A  MEETING   FOR  THE   RELIEF   OF   THE   FAMILY   OF  JOHN 

BKOWN,   AT  TREMONT  TEMPLE,  BOSTON, 

NOVEMBER  18,  1859. 


JOHN  BROWN:    SPEECH  AT  BOSTON. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  AND  FELLOW  CITIZENS  : 

I  share  the  sympathy  and  sorrow  which  have 
brought  us  together.  Gentlemen  who  have  pre 
ceded  me  have  well  said  that  no  wall  of  separation 
could  here  exist.  This  commanding  event  which 
has  brought  us  together,  eclipses  all  others  which 
have  occurred  for  a  long  time  in  our  history,  and  I 
am  very  glad  to  see  that  this  sudden  interest  in  the 
hero  of  Harper's  Ferry  has  provoked  an  extreme  cu 
riosity  in  all  parts  of  the  Republic,  in  regard  to  the 
details  of  his  history.  Every  anecdote  is  eagerly 
sought,  and  I  do  not  wonder  that  gentlemen  find 
traits  of  relation  readily  between  him  and  them 
selves.  One  finds  a  relation  in  the  church,  another 
in  the  profession,  another  in  the  place  of  his  birth. 
He  was  happily  a  representative  of  the  American 
Republic.  Captain  John  Brown  is  a  farmer,  the 
fifth  in  descent  from  Peter  Brown,  who  came  to 
Plymouth  in  the  Mayflower,  in  1620.  All  the  six 
have  been  farmers.  His  grandfather,  of  Simsbury, 
in  Connecticut,  was  a  captain  in  the  Revolution. 


252  REMARKS  AT  A  MEETING  FOR 

His  father,  largely  interested  as  a  raiser  of  stock, 
became  a  contractor  to  supply  the  army  with  beef, 
in  the  war  of  1812,  and  our  Captain  John  Brown, 
then  a  boy,  with  his  father,  was  present  and  wit 
nessed  the  surrender  of  General  Hull.  He  cher 
ishes  a  great  respect  for  his  father,  as  a  man  of 
strong  character,  and  his  respect  is  probably  just. 
For  himself,  he  is  so  transparent  that  all  men 
see  him  through.  He  is  a  man  to  make  friends 
wherever  on  earth  courage  and  integrity  are  es 
teemed,  the  rarest  of  heroes,  a  pure  idealist,  with 
no  by-ends  of  his  own.  Many  of  you  have  seen 
him,  and  every  one  who  has  heard  him  speak  has 
been  impressed  alike  by  his  simple,  artless  good 
ness,  joined  with  his  sublime  courage.  He  joins 
that  perfect  Puritan  faith  which  brought  his  fifth 
ancestor  to  Plymouth  Rock,  with  his  grandfather's 
ardor  in  the  Revolution.  He  believes  in  two  arti 
cles  —  two  instruments  shall  I  say  ?  —  the  Golden 
Rule  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  and  he 
used  this  expression  in  conversation  here  concern 
ing  them,  "  Better  that  a  whole  generation  of  men, 
women  and  children  should  pass  away  by  a  violent 
death,  than  that  one  word  of  either  should  be  vio 
lated  in  this  country."  There  is  a  Unionist, — 
there  is  a  strict  constructionist  for  you.  He  be 
lieves  in  the  Union  of  the  States,  and  he  conceives 
that  the  only  obstruction  to  the  Union  is  Slavery, 


RELIEF  OF  JOHN  BROWN'S  FAMILY.     253 

and  for  that  reason,  as  a  patriot,  he  works  for  its 
abolition.  The  Governor  of  Virginia  has  pro 
nounced  his  eulogy  in  a  manner  that  discredits  the 
moderation  of  our  timid  parties.  His  own  speeches 
to  the  court  have  interested  the  nation  in  him. 
What  magnanimity,  and  what  innocent  pleading, 
as  of  childhood  !  You  remember  his  words :  "  If  I 
had  interfered  in  behalf  of  the  rich,  the  powerful, 
the  intelligent,  the  so-called  great,  or  any  of  their 
friends,  parents,  wives,  or  children,  it  would  all  have 
been  right.  But  I  believe  that  to  have  interfered 
as  I  have  done,  for  the  despised  poor,  was  not 
wrong,  but  right." 

It  is  easy  to  see  what  a  favorite  he  will  be  with 
history,  which  plays  such  pranks  with  temporary 
reputations.  Nothing  can  resist  the  sympathy 
which  all  elevated  minds  must  feel  with  Brown, 
and  through  them  the  whole  civilized  world  ;  and 
if  he  must  suffer,  he  must  drag  official  gentlemen 
into  an  immortality  most  undesirable,  and  of  which 
they  have  already  some  disagreeable  forebodings. 
Indeed,  it  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  Slavery, 
when  the  Governor  of  Virginia  is  forced  to  hang  a 
man  whom  he  declares  to  be  a  man  of  the  most  in 
tegrity,  truthfulness  and  courage  he  has  ever  met. 
Is  that  the  kind  of  man  the  gallows  is  built  for  ? 
It  were  bold  to  affirm  that  there  is  within  that 
broad  Commonwealth,  at  this  moment,  another  citi- 


254  REMARKS  AT  A  MEETING  FOR 

zen  as  worthy  to  live,  and  as  deserving  of  all  pub 
lic  and  private  honor,  as  this  poor  prisoner. 

But  we  are  here  to  think  of  relief  for  the  family 
of  John  Brown.  To  my  eyes,  that  family  looks 
very  large  and  very  needy  of  relief.  It  comprises 
his  brave  fellow-sufferers  in  the  Charlestown  Jail ; 
the  fugitives  still  hunted  in  the  mountains  of  Vir 
ginia  and  Pennsylvania  ;  the  sympathizers  with  him 
in  all  the  States ;  and  I  may  say,  almost  every  man 
who  loves  the  Golden  Rule  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  like  him,  and  who  sees  what  a  tiger's 
thirst  threatens  him  in  the  malignity  of  public  sen 
timent  in  the  Slave  States.  It  seems  to  me  that  a 
common  feeling  joins  the  people  of  Massachusetts 
with  him. 

I  said  John  Brown  was  an  idealist.  He  believed 
in  his  ideas  to  that  extent  that  he  existed  to  put 
them  all  into  action ;  he  said,  "  he  did  not  believe 
in  moral  suasion,  he  believed  in  putting  the  thing 
through."  He  saw  how  deceptive  the  forms  are. 
We  fancy,  in  Massachusetts,  that  we  are  free ;  yet 
it  seems  the  Government  is  quite  unreliable.  Great 
wealth,  great  population,  men  of  talent  in  the  Ex 
ecutive,  on  the  Bench,  —  all  the  forms  right,  —  and 
yet,  life  and  freedom  are  not  safe.  Why?  Be 
cause  the  judges  rely  on  the  forms,  and  do  not,  like 
John  Brown,  use  their  eyes  to  see  the  fact  behind 
the  forms.  They  assume  that  the  United  States 


RELIEF  OF  JOHN  BROWN'S  FAMILY.     255 

can  protect  its  witness  or  its  prisoner.  And,  in 
Massachusetts,  that  is  true,  but  the  moment  he  is 
carried  out  of  the  bounds  of  Massachusetts,  the 
United  States,  it  is  notorious,  afford  no  protection 
at  all ;  the  Government,  the  judges,  are  an  enven 
omed  party,  and  give  such  protection  as  they  give 
in  Utah  to  honest  citizens,  or  in  Kansas  ;  such  pro 
tection  as  they  gave  to  their  own  Commodore  Pauld- 
ing,  when  he  was  simple  enough  to  mistake  the  for 
mal  instructions  of  his  Government  for  their  real 
meaning.  The  state  judges  fear  collision  between 
their  two  allegiances  ;  but  there  are  worse  evils  than 
collision;  namely,  the  doing  substantial  injustice. 
A  good  man  will  see  that  the  use  of  a  judge  is  to 
secure  good  government,  and  where  the  citizen's 
weal  is  imperilled  by  abuse  of  the  Federal  power, 
to  use  that  arm  which  can  secure  it,  viz.,  the  local 
government.  Had  that  been  done  on  certain  calam 
itous  occasions,  we  should  not  have  seen  the  honor 
of  Massachusetts  trailed  in  the  dust,  stained  to  all 
ages,  once  and  again,  by  the  ill-timed  formalism  of 
a  venerable  bench.  If  judges  cannot  find  law 
enough  to  maintain  the  sovereignty  of  the  state, 
and  to  protect  the  life  and  freedom  of  every  inhabi 
tant  not  a  criminal,  it  is  idle  to  compliment  them 
as  learned  and  venerable.  What  avails  their  learn 
ing  or  veneration  ?  At  a  pinch,  they  are  no  more 
use  than  idiots.  After  the  mischance  they  wring 


256        RELIEF  OF  JOHN  BROWN'S  FAMILY. 

their  hands,  but  they  had  better  never  have  been 
born.  A  Vermont  Judge  Hutchinson,  who  has  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  his  heart ;  a  Wis 
consin  judge,  who  knows  that  laws  are  for  the  pro 
tection  of  citizens  against  kidnappers,  is  worth  a 
court  house  full  of  lawyers  so  idolatrous  of  forms  as 
to  let  go  the  substance.  Is  any  man  in  Massachu 
setts  so  simple  as  to  believe  that  when  a  United 
States  Court  in  Virginia,  now,  in  its  present  reign 
of  terror,  sends  to  Connecticut,  or  New  York,  or 
Massachusetts,  for  a  witness,  it  wants  him  for  a 
witness  ?  No  ;  it  wants  him  for  a  party  ;  it  wants 
him  for  meat  to  slaughter  and  eat.  And  your  ha 
beas  corpus  is,  in  any  way  in  which  it  has  been,  or, 
I  fear,  is  likely  to  be  used,  a  nuisance,  and  not  a 
protection  ;  for  it  takes  away  his  right  reliance  on 
himself,  and  the  natural  assistance  of  his  friends 
and  fellow-citizens,  by  offering  him  a  form  which 
is  a  piece  of  paper. 

But  I  am  detaining  the  meeting  on  matters  which 
others  understand  better.  I  hope,  then,  that  in  ad 
ministering  relief  to  John  Brown's  family,  we  shall 
remember  all  those  whom  his  fate  concerns,  all  who 
are  in  sympathy  with  him,  and  not  forget  to  aid 
him  in  the  best  way,  by  securing  freedom  and  inde 
pendence  in  Massachusetts. 


JOHN  BROWN. 

SPEECH  AT  SALEM,  JANUARY  6,  I860. 


JOHN   BROWN. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  : 

I  have  been  struck  with  one  fact,  that  the  best 
orators  who  have  added  their  praise  to  his  fame,  — 
and  I  need  not  go  out  of  this  house  to  find  the 
purest  eloquence  in  the  country,  —  have  one  rival 
who  comes  off  a  little  better,  and  that  is  JOHN 
BROWN.  Every  thing  that  is  said  of  him  leaves 
people  a  little  dissatisfied ;  but  as  soon  as  they  read 
his  own  speeches  and  letters  they  are  heartily  con 
tented,  —  such  is  the  singleness  of  purpose  which 
justifies  him  to  the  head  and  the  heart  of  all. 
Taught  by  this  experience,  I  mean,  in  the  few  re 
marks  I  have  to  make,  to  cling  to  his  history,  or  let 
him  speak  for  himself. 

John  Brown,  the  founder  of  liberty  in  Kansas, 
was  born  in  Torrington,  Litchfield  County,  Conn., 
in  1800.  When  he  was  five  years  old  his  father 
emigrated  to  Ohio,  and  the  boy  was  there  set  to 
keep  sheep  and  to  look  after  cattle  and  dress  skins ; 
he  went  bareheaded  and  barefooted,  and  clothed  in 
buckskin.  He  said  that  he  loved  rough  play,  could 
never  have  rough  play  enough  ;  could  not  see  a 


260  JOHN  BROWN: 

seedy  hat  without  wishing  to  pull  it  off.  But  for 
this  it  needed  that  the  playmates  should  be  equal ; 
not  one  in  fine  clothes  and  the  other  in  buckskin  ; 
not  one  his  own  master,  hale  and  hearty,  and  the 
other  watched  and  whipped.  But  it  chanced  that 
in  Pennsylvania,  where  he  was  sent  by  his  father  to 
collect  cattle,  he  fell  in  with  a  boy  whom  he  hear 
tily  liked  and  whom  he  looked  upon  as  his  superior. 
This  boy  was  a  slave;  he  saw  him  beaten  with 
an  iron  shovel,  and  otherwise  maltreated ;  he  saw 
that  this  boy  had  nothing  better  to  look  forward  to 
in  life,  whilst  he  himself  was  petted  and  made  much 
of ;  for  he  was  much  considered  in  the  family  where 
he  then  stayed,  from  the  circumstance  that  this  boy 
of  twelve  years  had  conducted  alone  a  drove  of  cat 
tle  a  hundred  miles.  But  the  colored  boy  had  110 
friend,  and  no  future.  This  worked  such  indigna 
tion  in  him  that  he  swore  an  oath  of  resistance  to 
Slavery  as  long  as  he  lived.  And  thus  his  enter 
prise  to  go  into  Virginia  and  run  off  five  hundred 
or  a  thousand  slaves  was  not  a  piece  of  spite  or  re 
venge,  a  plot  of  two  years  or  of  twenty  years,  but 
the  keeping  of  an  oath  made  to  Heaven  and  earth 
forty-seven  years  before.  Forty-seven  years  at  least, 
though  I  incline  to  accept  his  own  account  of  the 
matter  at  Charlestown,  which  makes  the  date  a  lit 
tle  older,  when  he  said,  "  This  was  all  settled  mil 
lions  of  years  before  the  world  was  made." 


SPEECH  AT  SALEM.  261 

He  grew  up  a  religious  and  manly  person,  in 
severe  poverty;  a  fair  specimen  of  the  best  stock 
of  New  England  ;  having  that  force  of  thought  and 
that  sense  of  right  which  are  the  warp  and  woof  of 
greatness.  Our  farmers  were  Orthodox  Calvinists, 
mighty  in  the  Scriptures ;  had  learned  that  life  was 
a  preparation,  a  "  probation,"  to  use  their  word,  for 
a  higher  world,  and  was  to  be  spent  in  loving  and 
serving  mankind. 

Thus  was  formed  a  romantic  character  absolutely 
without  any  vulgar  trait ;  living  to  ideal  ends,  with 
out  any  mixture  of  self-indulgence  or  compromise, 
such  as  lowers  the  value  of  benevolent  and  thought 
ful  men  we  know  ;  abstemious,  refusing  luxuries, 
not  sourly  and  reproachfully  but  simply  as  unfit  for 
his  habit ;  quiet  and  gentle  as  a  child  in  the  house. 
And,  as  happens  usually  to  men  of  romantic  char 
acter,  his  fortunes  were  romantic.  Walter  Scott 
would  have  delighted  to  draw  his  picture  and  trace 
his  adventurous  career.  A  shepherd  and  herds 
man,  he  learned  the  manners  of  animals,  and  knew 
the  secret  signals  by  which  animals  communicate. 
He  made  his  hard  bed  on  the  mountains  with  them ; 
he  learned  to  drive  his  flock  through  thickets  all 
but  impassable  ;  he  had  all  the  skill  of  a  shepherd 
by  choice  of  breed  and  by  wise  husbandry  to  ob 
tain  the  best  wool,  and  that  for  a  course  of  years. 
And  the  anecdotes  preserved  show  a  far-seeing  skill 


262  JOHN  BROWN: 

and  conduct  which,  in  spite  of  adverse  accidents, 
should  secure,  one  year  with  another,  an  honest  re 
ward,  first  to  the  farmer,  and  afterwards  to  the 
dealer.  If  he  kept  sheep,  it  was  with  a  royal  mind ; 
and  if  he  traded  in  wool,  he  was  a  merchant  prince, 
not  in  the  amount  of  wealth,  but  in  the  protection 
of  the  interests  confided  to  him. 

I  am  not  a  little  surprised  at  the  easy  effrontery 
with  which  political  gentlemen,  in  and  out  of  Con 
gress,  take  it  upon  them  to  say  that  there  are  not  a 
thousand  men  in  the  North  who  sympathize  with 
John  Brown.  It  would  be  far  safer  and  nearer  the 
truth  to  say  that  all  people,  in  proportion  to  their 
sensibility  and  self-respect,  sympathize  with  him. 
For  it  is  impossible  to  see  courage,  and  disinter 
estedness,  and  the  love  that  casts  out  fear,  without 
sympathy.  All  women  are  drawn  to  him  by  their 
predominance  of  sentiment.  All  gentlemen,  of 
course,  are  on  his  side.  I  do  not  mean  by  "  gentle 
men,"  people  of  scented  hair  and  perfumed  hand 
kerchiefs,  but  men  of  gentle  blood  and  generosity, 
"  fulfilled  with  all  nobleness,"  who,  like  the  Cid, 
give  the  outcast  leper  a  share  of  their  bed ;  like  the 
dying  Sidney,  pass  the  cup  of  cold  water  to  the 
wounded  soldier  who  needs  it  more.  For  what  is 
the  oath  of  gentle  blood  and  knighthood  ?  What 
but  to  protect  the  weak  and  lowly  against  the 
strong  oppressor  ? 


SPEECH  AT  SALEM.  263 

Nothing  is  more  absurd  than  to  complain  of  this 
sympathy,  or  to  complain  of  a  party  of  men  united 
in  opposition  to  Slavery.  As  well  complain  of 
gravity,  or  the  ebb  of  the  tide.  Who  makes  the 
Abolitionist?  The  Slaveholder.  The  sentiment 
of  mercy  is  the  natural  recoil  which  the  laws  of  the 
universe  provide  to  protect  mankind  from  destruc 
tion  by  savage  passions.  And  our  blind  statesmen 
go  up  and  down,  with  committees  of  vigilance  and 
safety,  hunting  for  the  origin  of  this  new  heresy. 
They  will  need  a  very  vigilant  committee  indeed 
to  find  its  birthplace,  and  a  very  strong  force  to 
root  it  out.  For  the  arch- Abolitionist,  older  than 
Brown,  and  older  than  the  Shenandoah  Mountains, 
is  Love,  whose  other  name  is  Justice,  which  was 
before  Alfred,  before  Lycurgus,  before  Slavery, 
and  will  be  after  it. 


THEODOKE  PARKER. 

AN  ADDRESS  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  MEETING  AT  THE  MUSIC  HALL, 
BOSTON,  JUNE  15,  1860. 


THEODORE  PAEKEE. 


AT  the  death  of  a  good  and  admirable  person,  we 
meet  to  console  and  animate  each  other  by  the  rec 
ollection  of  his  virtues. 

I  have  the  feeling  that  every  man's  biography  is 
at  his  own  expense.  He  furnishes  not  only  the 
facts  but  the  report.  I  mean  that  all  biography  is 
autobiography.  It  is  only  what  he  tells  of  himself 
that  comes  to  be  known  and  believed.  In  Plu 
tarch's  lives  of  Alexander  and  Pericles,  you  have 
the  secret  whispers  of  their  confidence  to  their  lov 
ers  and  trusty  friends.  For  it  was  each  report  of 
this  kind  that  impressed  those  to  whom  it  was  told 
in  a  manner  to  secure  its  being  told  everywhere  to 
the  best,  to  those  who  speak  with  authority  to  their 
own  times  and  therefore  to  ours.  For  the  political 
rule  is  a  cosmical  rule,  that  if  a  man  is  not  strong 
in  his  own  district,  he  is  not  a  good  candidate  else 
where. 

He  whose  voice  will  not  be  heard  here  again, 
could  well  afford  to  tell  his  experiences ;  they  were 
all  honorable  to  him,  and  were  part  of  the  history 


268  THEODORE  PARKER. 

of  the  civil  and  religious  liberty  of  his  times.  The 
odore  Parker  was  a  son  of  the  soil,  charged  with 
the  energy  of  New  England,  strong,  eager,  inquisi 
tive  of  knowledge,  of  a  diligence  that  never  tired, 
upright,  of  a  haughty  independence,  yet  the  gentlest 
of  companions  ;  a  man  of  study,  fit  for  a  man  of 
the  world ;  with  decided  opinions  and  plenty  of 
power  to  state  them ;  rapidly  pushing  his  studies  so 
far  as  to  leave  few  men  qualified  to  sit  as  his  critics. 
He  elected  his  part  of  duty,  or  accepted  nobly  that 
assigned  him  in  his  rare  constitution.  Wonderful 
acquisition  of  knowledge,  a  rapid  wit  that  heard  all, 
and  welcomed  all  that  came,  by  seeing  its  bearing. 
Such  was  the  largeness  of  his  reception  of  facts  and 
his  skill  to  employ  them,  that  it  looked  as  if  he 
were  some  President  of  Council  to  whom  a  score  of 
telegraphs  were  ever  bringing  in  reports ;  and  his 
information  would  have  been  excessive,  but  for  the 
noble  use  he  made  of  it  ever  in  the  interest  of  hu 
manity.  He  had  a  strong  understanding,  a  logical 
method,  a  love  for  facts,  a  rapid  eye  for  their  his 
toric  relations,  and  a  skill  in  stripping  them  of  tra 
ditional  lustres.  He  had  a  sprightly  fancy,  and  of 
ten  amused  himself  with  throwing  his  meaning  into 
pretty  apologues ;  yet  we  can  hardly  ascribe  to  his 
mind  the  poetic  element,  though  his  scholarship  had 
made  him  a  reader  and  quoter  of  verses.  A  little 
more  feeling  of  the  poetic  significance  of  his  facts 


THEODORE  PARKER.  269 

would  have  disqualified  him  for  some  of  his  severer 
offices  to  his  generation.  The  old  religions  have  a 
charm  for  most  minds  which  it  is  a  little  uncanny 
to  disturb.  'T  is  sometimes  a  question,  shall  we  not 
leave  them  to  decay  without  rude  shocks  ?  I  re 
member  that  I  found  some  harshness  in  his  treat 
ment  both  of  Greek  and  of  Hebrew  antiquity,  and 
sympathized  with  the  pain  of  many  good  people  in 
his  auditory,  whilst  I  acquitted  him,  of  course,  of 
any  wish  to  be  flippant.  He  came  at  a  time  when, 
to  the  irresistible  march  of  opinion,  the  forms  still 
retained  by  the  most  advanced  sects  showed  loose 
and  lifeless,  and  he,  with  something  less  of  affec 
tionate  attachment  to  the  old,  or  with  more  vigorous 
logic,  rejected  them.  'T  is  objected  to  him  that  he 
scattered  too  many  illusions.  Perhaps  more  ten 
derness  would  have  been  graceful ;  but  it  is  vain  to 
charge  him  with  perverting  the  opinions  of  the  new 
generation. 

The  opinions  of  men  are  organic.  Simply,  those 
came  to  him  who  found  themselves  expressed  by 
him.  And  had  they  not  met  this  enlightened  mind, 
in  which  they  beheld  their  own  opinions  combined 
with  zeal  in  every  cause  of  love  and  humanity,  they 
would Jiave  suspected  their  opinions  and  suppressed 
them,  and  so  sunk  into  melancholy  or  malignity  — 
a  feeling  of  loneliness  and  hostility  to  what  was 
reckoned  respectable.  'T  is  plain  to  me  that  he  has 


270  THEODORE  PARKER. 

achieved  a  historic  immortality  here  ;  that  he  has 
so  woven  himself  in  these  few  years  into  the  history 
of  Boston,  that  he  can  never  be  left  out  of  your  an 
nals.  It  will  not  be  in  the  acts  of  City  Councils, 
nor  of  obsequious  Mayors  ;  nor,  in  the  State  House, 
the  proclamations  of  Governors,  with  their  failing 
virtue  —  failing  them  at  critical  moments  —  that 
coming  generations  will  study  what  really  befell ; 
but  in  the  plain  lessons  of  Theodore  Parker  in  this 
Music  Hall,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  or  in  Legislative  Com 
mittee  Rooms,  that  the  true  temper  and  authentic 
record  of  these  days  will  be  read.  The  next  gener 
ation  will  care  little  for  the  chances  of  elections 
that  govern  Governors  now,  it  will  care  little  for 
fine  gentlemen  who  behaved  shabbily ;  but  it  will 
read  very  intelligently  in  his  rough  story,  fortified 
with  exact  anecdotes,  precise  with  names  and  dates, 
what  part  was  taken  by  each  actor  ;  who  threw 
himself  into  the  cause  of  humanity  and  came  to  the 
rescue  of  civilization  at  a  hard  pinch,  and  who 
blocked  its  course. 

The  vice  charged  against  America  is  the  want 
of  sincerity  in  leading  men.  It  does  not  lie  at  his 
door.  He  never  kept  back  the  truth  for  fear  to 
make  an  enemy.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was 
complained  that  he  was  bitter  and  harsh,  that  his 
zeal  burned  with  too  hot  a  flame.  It  is  so  difficult, 
in  evil  times,  to  escape  this  charge  !  for  the  faithful 


THEODORE  PARKER.  271 

preacher  most  of  all.  It  was  his  merit,  like  Luther, 
Knox  and  Latimer,  and  John  Baptist,  to  speak  tart 
truth,  when  that  was  peremptory  and  when  there 
were  few  to  say  it.  But  his  sympathy  for  goodness 
was  not  less  energetic.  One  fault  he  had,  he  over 
estimated  his  friends,  —  I  may  well  say  it,  —  and 
sometimes  vexed  them  with  the  importunity  of  his 
good  opinion,  whilst  they  knew  better  the  ebb  which 
follows  unfounded  praise.  He  was  capable,  it  must 
be  said,  of  the  most  unmeasured  eulogies  on  those 
he  esteemed,  especially  if  he  had  any  jealousy  that 
they  did  not  stand  with  the  Boston  public  as  highly 
as  they  ought.  His  commanding  merit  as  a  re 
former  is  this,  that  he  insisted  beyond  all  men  in 
pulpits,  —  I  cannot  think  of  one  rival,  —  that  the 
essence  of  Christianity  is  its  practical  morals ;  it  is 
there  for  use,  or  it  is  nothing  ;  and  if  you  combine 
it  with  sharp  trading,  or  with  ordinary  city  ambi 
tions  to  gloze  over  municipal  corruptions,  or  private 
intemperance,  or  successful  fraud,  or  immoral  poli 
tics,  or  unjust  wars,  or  the  cheating  of  Indians,  or 
the  robbery  of  frontier  nations,  or  leaving  your 
principles  at  home  to  follow  on  the  high  seas  or  in 
Europe  a  supple  complaisance  to  tyrants,  —  it  is  a 
hypocrisy,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  you  ;  and  no  love 
of  religious  music  or  of  dreams  of  Swedenborg,  or 
praise  of  John  Wesley,  or  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  can 
save  you  from  the  Satan  which  you  are. 


272  THEODORE  PARKER. 

His  ministry  fell  on  a  political  crisis  also ;  on  the 
years  when  Southern  slavery  broke  over  its  old 
banks,  made  new  and  vast  pretensions,  and  wrung 
from  the  weakness  or  treachery  of  Northern  peo 
ple  fatal  concessions  in  the  Fugitive-Slave  Bill  and 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Two  days, 
bitter  in  the  memory  of  Boston,  the  days  of  the  ren 
dition  of  Sims  and  of  Burns,  made  the  occasion  of 
his  most  remarkable  discourses.  He  kept  nothing 
back.  In  terrible  earnest  he  denounced  the  public 
crime,  and  meted  out  to  every  official,  high  and  low, 
his  due  portion.  By  the  incessant  power  of  his 
statement,  he  made  and  held  a  party.  It  was  his 
great  service  to  freedom.  He  took  away  the  re 
proach  of  silent  consent  that  would  otherwise  have 
lain  against  the  indignant  minority,  by  uttering  in 
the  hour  and  place  wherein  these  outrages  were 
done,  the  stern  protest. 

But,  whilst  I  praise  this  frank  speaker,  I  have  no 
wish  to  accuse  the  silence  of  others.  There  are 
men  of  good  powers  who  have  so  much  sympathy 
that  they  must  be  silent  when  they  are  not  in  sym 
pathy.  If  you  don't  agree  with  them,  they  know 
they  only  injure  the  truth  by  speaking.  Their  fac 
ulties  will  not  play  them  true,  and  they  do  not  wish 
to  squeak  and  gibber,  and  so  they  shut  their  mouths. 
I  can  readily  forgive  this,  only  not  the  other,  the 
false  tongue  which  makes  the  worse  appear  the  bet- 


THEODORE  PARKER.  273 

ter  cause.  There  were,  of  course,  multitudes  to 
censure  and  defame  this  truth-speaker.  But  the 
brave  know  the  brave.  Fops,  whether  in  hotels  or 
churches,  will  utter  the  fop's  opinion,  and  faintly 
hope  for  the  salvation  of  his  soul ;  but  his  manly 
enemies,  who  despised  the  fops,  honored  him  ;  and 
it  is  well  known  that  his  great  hospitable  heart  was 
the  sanctuary  to  which  every  soul  conscious  of  an 
earnest  opinion  came  for  sympathy  —  alike  the 
brave  slaveholder  and  the  brave  slave-rescuer. 
These  met  in  the  house  of  this  honest  man —  for 
every  sound  heart  loves  a  responsible  person,  one 
who  does  not  in  generous  company  say  generous 
things,  and  in  mean  company  base  things,  but  says 
one  thing  —  now  cheerfully,  now  indignantly  —  but 
always  because  he  must,  and  because  he  sees  that, 
whether  he  speak  or  refrain  from  speech,  this  is 
said  over  him ;  and  history,  nature  and  all  souls 
testify  to  the  same. 

Ah,  my  brave  brother !  it  seems  as  if,  in  a  frivo 
lous  age,  our  loss  were  immense,  and  your  place 
cannot  be  supplied.  But  you  will  already  be  con 
soled  in  the  transfer  of  your  genius,  knowing  well 
that  the  nature  of  the  world  will  affirm  to  all  men, 
in  all  times,  that  which  for  twenty-five  years  you 
valiantly  spoke ;  that  the  winds  of  Italy  murmur  the 
same  truth  over  your  grave  ;  the  winds  of  America 
over  these  bereaved  streets  ;  that  the  sea  which 

VOL.   XI.  18 


274  THEODORE  PARKER. 

bore  your  mourners  home  affirms  it,  the  stars  in 
their  courses,  and  the  inspirations  of  youth  ;  whilst 
the  polished  and  pleasant  traitors  to  human  rights, 
with  perverted  learning  and  disgraced  graces,  rot 
and  are  forgotten  with  their  double  tongue  saying 
all  that  is  sordid  for  the  corruption  of  man. 

The  sudden  and  singular  eminence  of  Mr.  Parker, 
the  importance  of  his  name  and  influence,  are  the 
verdict  of  his  country  to  his  virtues.  We  have  few 
such  men  to  lose  ;  amiable  and  blameless  at  home, 
feared  abroad  as  the  standard-bearer  of  liberty,  tak 
ing  all  the  duties  he  could  grasp,  and  more,  refus 
ing  to  spare  himself,  he  has  gone  down  in  early 
glory  to  his  grave,  to  be  a  living  and  enlarging 
power,  wherever  learning,  wit,  honest  valor  and 
independence  are  honored. 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 


\ '  V>     r 

T  I 

-'    0s4 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION.1 


USE,  labor  of  each  for  all,  is  the  health  and  vir 
tue  of  all  beings.  IcJi  dien,  I  serve,  is  a  truly  royal 
motto.  And  it  is  the  mark  of  nobleness  to  volun 
teer  the  lowest  service,  the  greatest  spirit  only  at-, 
taining  to  humility.  Nay,  God  is  God  because  he  is 
the  servant  of  all.  Well,  now  here  comes  this  con 
spiracy  of  slavery,  —  they  call  it  an  institution,  I 
call  it  a  destitution,  —  this  stealing  of  men  and  set 
ting  them  to  work,  stealing  their  labor,  and  the  thief 
sitting  idle  himself  ;  and  for  two  or  three  ages  it 
has  lasted,  and  has  yielded  a  certain  quantity  of  rice, 
cotton  and  sugar.  And,  standing  on  this  doleful 
experience,  these  people  have  endeavored  to  reverse 
the  natural  sentiments  of  mankind,  and  to  pronounce 
labor  disgraceful,  and  the  well-being  of  a  man  to 
consist  in  eating  the  fruit  of  other  men's  labor. 

1  Part  of  a  lecture  delivered  at  Washington,  Jan.  31,  1862, 
it  is  said,  in  the  presence  of  President  Lincoln  and  some  of 
his  Cabinet,  some  months  before  the  issuing  of  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation.  The  rest  was  published  in  Society  and 
Solitude,  under  the  title  "  Civilization." 


278  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 

Labor :  a  man  coins  himself  into  his  labor  ;  turns 
his  day,  his  strength,  his  thought,  his  affection  into 
some  product  which  remains  as  the  visible  sign  of 
his  power;  and  to  protect  that,  to  secure  that  to 
him,  to  secure  his  past  self  to  his  future  self,  is  the 
object  of  all  government.  There  is  no  interest  in 
any  country  so  imperative  as  that  of  labor  ;  it  cov 
ers  all,  and  constitutions  and  governments  exist  for 
that,  —  to  protect  and  insure  it  to  the  laborer. 
All  honest  men  are  daily  striving  to  earn  their 
bread  by  their  industry.  And  who  is  this  who 
tosses  his  empty  head  at  this  blessing  in  disguise, 
the  constitution  of  human  nature,  and  calls  labor 
vile,  and  insults  the  faithful  workman  at  his  daily 
toil  ?  I  see  for  such  madness  no  hellebore,  —  for 
such  calamity  no  solution  but  servile  war  and  the 
Africanization  of  the  country  that  permits  it. 

At  this  moment  in  America  the  aspects  of  politi 
cal  society  absorb  attention.  In  every  house,  from 
Canada  to  the  Gulf,  the  children  ask  the  serious 
father,  —  "  What  is  the  news  of  the  war  to-day, 
and  when  will  there  be  better  times  ?  "  The  boys 
have  no  new  clothes,  no  gifts,  no  journeys ;  the 
girls  must  go  without  new  bonnets  ;  boys  and  girls 
find  their  education,  this  year,  less  liberal  and  com 
plete.  All  the  little  hopes  that  heretofore  made 
the  year  pleasant  are  deferred.  The  state  of  the 
country  fills  us  with  anxiety  and  stern  duties.  We 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION.  279 

have  attempted  to  hold  together  two  states  of  civi 
lization  :  a  higher  state,  where  labor  and  the  tenure 
of  land  and  the  right  of  suffrage  are  democratical ; 
and  a  lower  state,  in  which  the  old  military  tenure 
of  prisoners  or  slaves,  and  of  power  and  land  in  a 
few  hands,  makes  an  oligarchy :  we  have  attempted 
to  hold  these  two  states  of  society  under  one  law. 
But  the  rude  and  early  state  of  society  does  not 
work  well  with  the  later,  nay,  works  badly,  and  has 
poisoned  politics,  public  morals  and  social  inter 
course  in  the  Republic,  now  for  many  years. 

The  times  put  this  question,  Why  cannot  the 
best  civilization  be  extended  over  the  whole  country, 
since  the  disorder  of  the  less-civilized  portion  men 
aces  the  existence  of  the  country  ?  Is  this  secular 
progress  we  have  described,  this  evolution  of  man 
to  the  highest  powers,  only  to  give  him  sensibility, 
and  not  to  bring  duties  with  it  ?  Is  he  not  to  make 
his  knowledge  practical  ?  to  stand  and  to  withstand  ? 
Is  not  civilization  heroic  also  ?  Is  it  not  for  ac 
tion  ?  has  it  not  a  will  ?  "  There  are  periods," 
said  Niebuhr,  "  when  something  much  better  than 
happiness  and  security  of  life  is  attainable."  We 
live  in  a  new  and  exceptional  age.  /America  is 
another  word  for  Opportunity.  Our  whole  history 
appears  like  a  last  effort  of  the  Divine  Providence 
in  behalf  of  the  human  race  ;  and  a  literal,  slavish 
following  of  precedents,  as  by  a  justice  of  the  peace, 


280  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 

is  not  for  those  who  at  this  hour  lead  the  destinies 
of  this  people.  The  evil  you  contend  with  has  taken 
alarming  proportions,  and  you  still  content  yourself 
with  parrying  the  blows  it  aims,  but,  as  if  enchanted, 
abstain  from  striking  at  the  cause. 

If  the  American  people  hesitate,  it  is  not  for 
want  of  warning  or  advices.  The  telegraph  has 
been  swift  enough  to  announce  our  disasters.  The 
journals  have  not  suppressed  the  extent  of  the  ca 
lamity.  Neither  was  there  any  want  of  argument 
or  of  experience.  If  the  war  brought  any  surprise 
to  the  North,  it  was  not  the  fault  of  sentinels  on 
the  watch-tower,  who  had  furnished  full  details  of 
the  designs,  the  muster  and  the  means  of  the  enemy. 
Neither  was  anything  concealed  of  the  theory  or 
practice  of  slavery.  To  what  purpose  make  more 
big  books  of  these  statistics  ?  There  are  already 
mountains  of  facts,  if  any  one  wants  them.  But 
people  do  not  want  them.  They  bring  their  opin 
ion  into  the  world.  If  they  have  a  comatose  ten 
dency  in  the  brain,  they  are  pro-slavery  while  they 
live ;  if  of  a  nervous  sanguineous  temperament, 
they  are  abolitionists.  Then  interests  were  never 
persuaded.  Can  you  convince  the  shoe  interest,  or 
the  iron  interest,  or  the  cotton  interest,  by  reading 
passages  from  Milton  or  Montesquieu  ?  You  wish 
to  satisfy  people  that  slavery  is  bad  economy. 
Why,  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  pounded  on  that 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION.  281 

string,  and  made  out  its  case,  forty  years  ago.  A 
democratic  statesman  said  to  me,  long  since,  that, 
if  lie  owned  the  State  of  Kentucky,  he  would  manu 
mit  all  the  slaves,  and  be  a  gainer  by  the  transac 
tion.  Is  this  new  ?  No,  everybody  knows  it.  As 
a  general  economy  it  is  admitted.  But  there  is  no 
one  owner  of  the  state,  but  a  good  many  small  own 
ers.  One  man  owns  land  and  slaves ;  another 
owns  slaves  only.  Here  is  a  woman  who  has  no 
other  property,  —  like  a  lady  in  Charleston  I  knew 
of,  who  owned  fifteen  sweeps  and  rode  in  her  car 
riage.  It  is  clearly  a  vast  inconvenience  to  each  of 
these  to  make  any  change,  and  they  are  fretful  and 
talkative,  and  all  their  friends  are  ;  and  those  less 
interested  are  inert,  and,  from  want  of  thought, 
averse  to  innovation.  It  is  like  free  trade,  certainly 
the  interest  of  nations,  but  by  no  means  the  inter 
est  of  certain  towns  and  districts,  which  tariff  feeds 
fat ;  and  the  eager  interest  of  the  few  overpowers 
the  apathetic  general  conviction  of  the  many. 
Banknotes  rob  the  public,  but  are  such  a  daily  con 
venience  that  we  silence  our  scruples  and  make  be 
lieve  they  are  gold.  So  imposts  are  the  cheap  and 
right  taxation ;  but,  by  the  dislike  of  people  to  pay 
out  a  direct  tax,  governments  are  forced  to  render 
-life  costly  by  making  them  pay  twice  as  much,  hid 
den  in  the  price  of  tea  and  sugar. 

In  this  national  crisis,  it  is  not  argument  that  we 


282  AMERICAN  CmLIZATION. 

want,  but  that  rare  courage  which  dares  commit  it 
self  to  a  principle,  believing  that  Nature  is  its  ally, 
and  will  create  the  instruments  it  requires,  and 
more  than  make  good  any  petty  and  injurious  pro 
fit  which  it  may  disturb.  There  never  was  such  a 
combination  as  this  of  ours,  and  the  rules  to  meet 
it  are  not  set  down  in  any  history.  We  want  men 
of  original  perception  and  original  action,  who  can 
open  their  eyes  wider  than  to  a  nationality,  namely, 
to  considerations  of  benefit  to  the  human  race,  can 
act  in  the  interest  of  civilization.  Government 
must  not  be  a  parish  clerk,  a  justice  of  the  peace. 
It  has,  of  necessity,  in  any  crisis  of  the  state,  the 
absolute  powers  of  a  Dictator.  The  existing  Ad 
ministration  is  entitled  to  the  utmost  candor.  It 
is  to  be  thanked  for  its  angelic  virtue,  compared 
with  any  executive  experiences  with  which  we  have 
been  familiar.  But  the  times  will  not  allow  us  to 
indulge  in  compliment.  I  wish  I  saw  in  the  people 
that  inspiration  which,  if  Government  would  not 
obey  the  same,  would  leave  the  Government  behind 
and  create  on  the  moment  the  means  and  executors 
it  wanted.  Better  the  war  should  more  danger 
ously  threaten  us,  —  should  threaten  fracture  in 
what  is  still  whole,  and  punish  us  with  burned  cap 
itals  and  slaughtered  regiments,  and  so  exasperate 
the  people  to  energy,  exasperate  our  nationality. 
There  are  Scriptures  written  invisibly  on  men's 


AMERICAN   CIVILIZATION.  283 

hearts,  whose  letters  do  not  come  out  until  they  are 
enraged.  They  can  be  read  by  war-fires,  and  by 
eyes  in  the  last  peril. 

We  cannot  but  remember  that  there  have  been 
days  in  American  history,  when,  if  the  Free  States 
had  done  their  duty,  Slavery  had  been  blocked  by 
an  immovable  barrier,  and  our  recent  calamities 
forever  precluded.  The  Free  States  yielded,  and 
every  compromise  was  surrender  and  invited  new 
demands.  Here  again  is  a  new  occasion  which 
Heaven  offers  to  sense  and  virtue.  It  looks  as  if 
we  held  the  fate  of  the  fairest  possession  of  man 
kind  in  our  hands,  to  be  saved  by  our  firmness  or 
to  be  lost  by  hesitation. 

The  one  power  that  has  legs  long  enough  and 
strong  enough  to  wade  across  the  Potomac  offers 
itself  at  this  hour ;  the  one  strong  enough  to  bring 
all  the  civility  up  to  the  height  of.  that  which  is  best, 
prays  now  at  the  door  of  Congress  for  leave  to 
move.  Emancipation  is  the  demand  of  civilization. 
That  is  a  principle ;  everything  else  is  an  intrigue. 
This  is  a  progressive  policy,  puts  the  whole  people 
in  healthy,  productive,  amiable  position,  puts  every 
man  in  the  South  in  just  and  natural  relations  with 
every  man  in  the  North,  laborer  with  laborer. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  unfold  the  details  of  the 
project  of  emancipation.  It  has  been  stated  with 
great  ability  by  several  of  its  leading  advocates. 


284  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 

1  will  only  advert  to  some  leading  points  of  the  ar 
gument,  at  the  risk  of  repeating  the  reasons  of 
others.  The  war  is  welcome  to  the  Southerner  ;  a 
chivalrous  sport  to  him,  like  hunting,  and  suits  his 
semi-civilized  condition.  On  the  climbing  scale  of 
progress,  he  is  just  up  to  war,  and  has  never  ap 
peared  to  such  advantage  as  in  the  last  twelve 
month.  It  does  not  suit  us.  We  are  advanced 
some  ages  on  the  war-state,  —  to  trade,  art  and  gen 
eral  cultivation.  His  laborer  works  for  him  at 
home,  so  that  he  loses  no  labor  by  the  war.  All 
our  soldiers  are  laborers ;  so  that  the  South,  with 
its  inferior  numbers,  is  almost  011  a  footing  in  effec 
tive  war-population  with  the  North.  Again,  as  long 
as  we  fight  without  any  affirmative  step,  taken  by 
the  Government,  any  word  intimating  forfeiture  in 
the  rebel  States  of  their  old  privileges  under  the 
law,  they  and  we  fight  on  the  same  side,  for  Slavery. 
Again,  if  we  conquer  the  enemy,  —  what  then  ? 
We  shall  still  have  to  keep  him  under,  and  it  will 
cost  as  much  to  hold  him  down  as  it  did  to  get  him 
down.  Then  comes  the  summer,  and  the  fever  will 
drive  the  soldiers  home ;  next  winter  we  must  be 
gin  at  the  beginning,  and  conquer  him  over  again. 
What  use  then  to  take  a  fort,  or  a  privateer,  or  get 
possession  of  an  inlet,  or  to  capture  a  regiment  of 
rebels  ? 

But  one  weapon  we  hold  which  is  sure.    Congress 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION.  285 

can,  by  edict,  as  a  part  of  the  military  defence 
which  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  provide,  abolish 
slavery,  and  pay  for  such  slaves  as  we  ought  to  pay 
for.  Then  the  slaves  near  our  armies  will  come  to 
us ;  those  in  the  interior  will  know  in  a  week  what 
their  rights  are,  and  will,  where  opportunity  offers, 
prepare  to  take  them.  Instantly,  the  armies  that 
now  confront  you  must  run  home  to  protect  their 
estates,  and  must  stay  there,  and  your  enemies  will 
disappear. 

There  can  be  no  safety  until  this  step  is  taken. 
We  fancy  that  the  endless  debate,  emphasized  by 
the  crime  and  by  the  cannons  of  this  war,  has 
brought  the  Free  States  to  some  conviction  that  it 
can  never  go  well  with  us  whilst  this  mischief  of 
slavery  remains  in  our  politics,  and  that  by  concert 
or  by  might  we  must  put  an  end  to  it.  But  we  have 
too  much  experience  of  the  futility  of  an  easy  reli 
ance  on  the  momentary  good  dispositions  of  the 
public.  There  does  exist,  perhaps,  a  popular  will 
that  the  Union  shall  not  be  broken,  —  that  our 
trade,  and  therefore  our  laws,  must  have  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  continent,  and  from  Canada  to  the 
Gulf.  But,  since  this  is  the  rooted  belief  and  will 
of  the  people,  so  much  the  more  are  they  in  danger, 
when  impatient  of  defeats,  or  impatient  of  taxes,  to 
go  with  a  rush  for  some  peace ;  and  what  kind  of 
peace  shall  at  that  moment  be  easiest  attained,  they 


286  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 

will  make  concessions  for  it,  —  will  give  up  the 
slaves,  and  the  whole  torment  of  the  past  half-cen 
tury  will  come  back  to  be  endured  anew. 

Neither  do  I  doubt,  if  such  a  composition  should 
take  place,  that  the  Southerners  will  come  back 
quietly  and  politely,  leaving  their  haughty  dictation. 
It  will  be  an  era  of  good  feelings.  There  will  be 
a  lull  after  so  loud  a  storm  ;  and,  no  doubt,  there 
will  be  discreet  men  from  that  section  who  will 
earnestly  strive  to  inaugurate  more  moderate  and 
fair  administration  of  the  Government,  and  the 
North  will  for  a  time  have  its  full  share  and  more, 
in  place  and  counsel.  But  this  will  not  last ;  —  not 
for  want  of  sincere  good-will  in  sensible  Southern 
ers,  but  because  Slavery  will  again  speak  through 
them  its  harsh  necessity.  It  cannot  live  but  by  in 
justice,  and  it  will  be  unjust  and  violent  to  the  end 
of  the  world. 

The  power  of  Emancipation  is  this,  that  it  alters 
the  atomic  social  constitution  of  the  Southern  peo 
ple.  Now,  their  interest  is  in  keeping  out  white 
labor ;  then,  when  they  must  pay  wages,  their  inter 
est  will  be  to  let  it  in,  to  get  the  best  labor,  and,  if 
they  fear  their  blacks,  to  invite  Irish,  German  and 
American  laborers.  Thus,  whilst  Slavery  makes 
and  keeps  disunion,  Emancipation  removes  the 
whole  objection  to  union.  Emancipation  at  one 
stroke  elevates  the  poor  white  of  the  South,  and 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION.  287 

identifies  his  interest  with  that   of   the   Northern 
laborer. 

Now,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  simple  and  gener 
ous,  why  should  not  this  great  right  be  done  ?  Why 
should  not  America  be  capable  of  a  second  stroke 
for  the  well-being  of  the  human  race,  as  eighty  or 
ninety  years  ago  she  was  for  the  first,  —  of  an  affirm 
ative  step  in  the  interests  of  human  civility,  urged 
on  her,  too,  not  by  any  romance  of  sentiment,  but 
by  her  own  extreme  perils  ?  It  is  very  certain  that 
the  statesman  who  shall  break  through  the  cobwebs 
of  doubt,  fear  and  petty  cavil  that  lie  in  the  way, 
will  be  greeted  by  the  unanimous  thanks  of  man 
kind.  Men  reconcile  themselves  very  fast  to  a  bold 
and  good  measure  when  once  it  is  taken,  though 
they  condemned  it  in  advance.  A  week  before  the 
two  captive  commissioners  were  surrendered  to 
England,  every  one  thought  it  could  not  be  done : 
it  would  divide  the  North.  It  was  done,  and  in  two 
days  all  agreed  it  was  the  right  action.  And  this 
action,  which  costs  so  little,  (the  parties  injured  by 
it  being  such  a  handful  that  they  can  very  easily 
be  indemnified,)  rids  the  world,  at  one  stroke,  of 
this  degrading  nuisance,  the  cause  of  war  and  ruin 
to  nations.  This  measure  at  once  puts  all  parties 
right.  This  is  borrowing,  as  I  said,  the  omnipotence 
of  a  principle.  What  is  so  foolish  as  the  terror 
lest  the  blacks  should  be  made  furious  by  freedom 


288  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 

and  wages  ?  It  is  denying  these  that  is  the  outrage, 
and  makes  the  danger  from  the  blacks.  But  justice 
satisfies  everybody,  —  white  man,  red  man,  yellow 
man  and  black  man.  All  like  wages,  and  the  ap 
petite  grows  by  feeding. 

But  this  measure,  to  be  effectual,  must  come 
speedily.  The  weapon  is  slipping  out  of  our  hands. 
"  Time,"  say  the  Indian  Scriptures,  "  drinketh  up 
the  essence  of  every  great  and  noble  action  which 
ought  to  be  performed,  and  which  is  delayed  in  the 
execution." 

I  hope  it  is  not  a  fatal  objection  to  this  policy 
that  it  is  simple  and  beneficent  thoroughly,  which 
is  the  attribute  of  a  moral  action.  An  unprece 
dented  material  prosperity  has  not  tended  to  make 
us  Stoics  or  Christians.  But  the  laws  by  which  the 
universe  is  organized  reappear  at  every  point,  and 
will  rule  it.  The  end  of  all  political  struggle  is  to 
establish  morality  as  the  basis  of  all  legislation.  It 
is  not  free  institutions,  it  is  not  a  republic,  it  is  not 
a  democracy,  that  is  the  end,  —  no,  but  only  the 
means.  Morality  is  the  object  of  government.  We 
want  a  state  of  things  in  which  crime  shall  not  pay. 
This  is  the  consolation  on  which  we  I'est  in  the  dark 
ness  of  the  future  and  the  afflictions  of  to-day,  that 
the  government  of  the  world  is  moral,  and  does  for 
ever  destroy  what  is  not.  It  is  the  maxim  of  nat 
ural  philosophers  that  the  natural  iorces  wear  out 


AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION.  289 

in  time  all  obstacles,  and  take  place  :  and  it  is  the 
maxim  of  history  that  victory  always  falls  at  last 
where  it  ought  to  fall ;  or,  there  is  perpetual  march 
and  progress  to  ideas.  But,  in  either  case,  no  link 
of  the  chain  can  drop  out.  Nature  works  through 
her  appointed  elements ;  and  ideas  must  work 
through  the  brains  and  the  arms  of  good  and  brave 
men,  or  they  are  no  better  than  dreams. 

Since  the  above  pages  were  written,  President 
Lincoln  has  proposed  to  Congress  that  the  Govern 
ment  shall  co-operate  with  any  State  that  shall  en 
act  a  gradual  abolishment  of  Slavery.  In  the  re 
cent  series  of  national  successes,  this  Message  is 
the  best.  It  marks  the  happiest  day  in  the  political 
year.  The  American  Executive  ranges  itself  for 
the  first  time  on  the  side  of  freedom.  If  Congress 
has  been  backward,  the  President  has  advanced. 
This  state-paper  is  the  more  interesting  that  it  ap 
pears  to  be  the  President's  individual  act,  done  un 
der  a  strong  sense  of  duty.  He  speaks  his  own 
thought  in  his  own  style.  All  thanks  and  honor  to 
the  Head  of  the  State !  The  Message  has  been  re 
ceived  throughout  the  country  with  praise,  and,  we 
doubt  not,  with  more  pleasure  than  has  been  spoken. 
If  Congress  accords  with  the  President,  it  is  not 
yet  too  late  to  begin  the  emancipation  ;  but  we 
think  it  will  always  be  too  late  to  make  it  gradual. 

VOL.  xi.  19 


290  AMERICAN  CIVILIZATION. 

All  experience  agrees  that  it  should  be  immediate. 
More  and  better  than  the  President  has  spoken 
shall,  perhaps,  the  effect  of  this  Message  be,  —  but, 
we  are  sure,  not  more  or  better  than  he  hoped  in 
his  heart,  when,  thoughtful  of  all  the  complexities 
of  his  position,  he  penned  these  cautious  words. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION. 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  IN  BOSTON  IN  SEPTEMBER,  1862. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION. 


IN  so  many  arid  forms  which  States  incrust 
themselves  with,  once  in  a  century,  if  so  often,  a 
poetic  act  and  record  occur.  These  are  the  jets  of 
thought  into  affairs,  when,  roused  by  danger  or 
inspired  by  genius,  the  political  leaders  of  the  day 
break  the  else  insurmountable  routine  of  class  and 
local  legislation,  and  take  a  step  forward  in  the 
direction  of  catholic  and  universal  interests.  Every 
step  in  the  history  of  political  liberty  is  a  sally  of 
the  human  mind  into  the  untried  Future,  and  has 
the  interest  of  genius,  and  is  fruitful  in  heroic  an 
ecdotes.  Liberty  is  a  slow  fruit.  It  comes,  like 
religion,  for  short  periods,  and  in  rare  conditions, 
as  if  awaiting  a  culture  of  the  race  which  shall 
make  it  organic  and  permanent.  Such  moments 
of  expansion  in  modern  history  were  the  Confession 
of  Augsburg,  the  plantation  of  America,  the  Eng 
lish  Commonwealth  of  1648,  the  Declaration  of 
American  Independence  in  1776,  the  British  eman 
cipation  of  slaves  in  the  West  Indies,  the  passage 
of  the  Reform  Bill,  the  repeal  of  the  Corn-Laws, 


294  SPEECH  ON  THE 

the  Magnetic  Ocean-Telegraph,  though  yet  imper 
fect,  the  passage  of  the  Homestead  Bill  in  the  last 
Congress,  and  now,  eminently,  President  Lincoln's 
Proclamation  on  the  twenty-second  of  September. 
These  are  acts  of  great  scope,  working  on  a  long 
future  and  on  permanent  interests,  and  honoring 
alike  those  who  initiate  and  those  who  receive  them. 
These  measures  provoke  no  noisy  joy,  but  are  re 
ceived  into  a  sympathy  so  deep  as  to  apprise  us 
that  mankind  are  greater  and  better  than  we  know. 
At  such  times  it  appears  as  if  a  new  public  were 
created  to  greet  the  new  event.  It  is  as  when  an 
orator,  having  ended  the  compliments  and  pleasant 
ries  with  which  he  conciliated  attention,  and  having 
run  over  the  superficial  fitness  and  commodities  of 
the  measure  he  urges,  suddenly,  lending  himself  to 
some  happy  inspiration,  announces  with  vibrating 
voice  the  grand  human  principles  involved  ;  —  the 
bravos  and  wits  who  greeted  him  loudly  thus  far 
are  surprised  and  overawed  ;  a  new  audience  is 
found  in  the  heart  of  the  assembly,  —  an  audience 
hitherto  passive  and  unconcerned,  now  at  last  so 
searched  and  kindled  that  they  come  forward, 
every  one  a  representative  of  mankind,  standing 
for  all  nationalities. 

The  extreme  moderation  with  which  the  Presi 
dent  advanced  to  his  design,  — his  long-avowed  ex 
pectant  policy,  as  if  he  chose  to  be  strictly  the  ex- 


EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.         295 

ecutive  of  the  best  public  sentiment  of  the  country, 
waiting  only  till  it  should  be  unmistakably  pro 
nounced,  —  so  fair  a  mind  that  none  ever  listened 
so  patiently  to  such  extreme  varieties  of  opinion,  — 
so  reticent  that  his  decision  has  taken  all  parties 
by  surprise,  whilst  yet  it  is  just  the  "sequel  of  his 
prior  acts,  —  the  firm  tone  in  which  he  announces 
it,  without  inflation  or  surplusage,  —  all  these  have 
bespoken  such  favor  to  the  act,  that,  great  as  the 
popularity  of  the  President  has  been,  we  are  be 
ginning  to  think  that  we  have  underestimated  the 
capacity  and  virtue  which  the  Divine  Providence 
has  made  an  instrument  of  benefit  so  vast.  He 
has  been  permitted  to  do  more  for  America  than 
any  other  American  man.  He  is  well  entitled  to 
the  most  indulgent  construction.  Forget  all  that 
we  thought  shortcomings,  every  mistake,  every  de 
lay.  In  the  extreme  embarrassments  of  his  part, 
call  these  endurance,  wisdom,  magnanimity;  illu 
minated,  as  they  now  are,  by  this  dazzling  success. 
When  we  consider  the  immense  opposition  that 
has  been  neutralized  or  converted  by  the  progress 
of  the  war  (for  it  is  not  long  since  the  President 
anticipated  the  resignation  of  a  large  number  of 
officers  in  the  army,  and  the  secession  of  three 
States,  on  the  promulgation  of  this  policy),  —  when 
we  see  how  the  great  stake  which  foreign  nations 
hold  in  our  affairs  has  recently  brought  every  Euro- 


296  SPEECH  ON  THE 

pean  power  as  a  client  into  this  court,  and  it  be 
came  every  day  more  apparent  what  gigantic  and 
what  remote  interests  were  to  be  affected  by  the 
decision  of  the  President,  —  one  can  hardly  say  the 
deliberation  was  too  long.  Against  all  timorous 
counsels  he  had  the  courage  to  seize  the  moment ; 
and  such  was  his  position,  and  such  the  felicity  at 
tending  the  action,  that  he  has  replaced  Govern 
ment  in  the  good  graces  of  mankind.  "  Better  is 
virtue  in  the  sovereign  than  plenty  in  the  season," 
say  the  Chinese.  'T  is  wonderful  what  power  is, 
and  how  ill  it  is  used,  and  how  its  ill  use  makes 
life  mean,  and  the  sunshine  dark.  Life  in  America 
had  lost  much  of  its  attraction  in  the  later  years. 
The  virtues  of  a  good  magistrate  undo  a  world  of 
mischief,  and,  because  Nature  works  with  rectitude, 
seem  vastly  more  potent  than  the  acts  of  bad  gov 
ernors,  which  are  ever  tempered  by  the  good-nature 
in  the  people,  and  the  incessant  resistance  which 
fraud  and  violence  encounter.  The  acts  of  good 
governors  work  a  geometrical  ratio,  as  one  midsum 
mer  day  seems  to  repair  the  damage  of  a  year  of 
war. 

A  day  which  most  of  us  dared  not  hope  to  see, 
an  event  worth  the  dreadful  war,  worth  its  costs 
and  uncertainties,  seems  now  to  be  close  before  us. 
October,  November,  December  will  have  passed 
over  beating  hearts  and  plotting  brains :  then  the 


EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.         297 

hour  will  strike,  and  all  men  of  African  descent 
who  have  faculty  enough  to  find  their  way  to  our 
lines  are  assured  of  the  protection  of  American 
law. 

It  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  this  measure 
should  be  suddenly  marked  by  any  signal  results 
on  the  negroes  or  on  the  Rebel  masters.  The  force 
of  the  act  is  that  it  commits  the  country  to  this 
justice,  —  that  it  compels  the  innumerable  officers, 
civil,  military,  naval,  of  the  Republic  to  range 
themselves  on  the  line  of  this  equity.  It  draws  the 
fashion  to  this  side.  It  is  not  a  measure  that  ad 
mits  of  being  taken  back.  Done,  it  cannot  be  un 
done  by  a  new  Administration.  For  slavery  over 
powers  the  disgust  of  the  moral  sentiment  only 
through  immemorial  usage.  It  cannot  be  intro 
duced  as  an  improvement  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
This  act  makes  that  the  lives  of  our  heroes  have 
not  been  sacrificed  in  vain.  It  makes  a  victory  of 
our  defeats.  Our  hurts  are  healed  ;  the  health  of 
the  nation  is  repaired.  With  a  victory  like  this, 
we  can  stand  many  disasters.  It  does  not  promise 
the  redemption  of  the  black  race ;  that  lies  not  with 
us  :  but  it  relieves  it  of  our  opposition.  The  Presi 
dent  by  this  act  has  paroled  all  the  slaves  in  Amer 
ica  ;  they  will  no  more  fight  against  us  :  and  it  re 
lieves  our  race  once  for  all  of  its  crime  and  false 
position.  The  first  condition  of  success  is  secured 


298  SPEECH  ON  THE 

in  putting  ourselves  right.  We  have  recovered 
ourselves  from  our  false  position,  and  planted  our 
selves  on  a  law  of  Nature  : 

«  If  that  fail, 

Tlie  pillared  firmament  is  rottenness, 
And  earth's  base  built  on  stubble." 

The  Government  has  assured  itself  of  the  best  con 
stituency  in  the  world  :  every  spark  of  intellect, 
every  virtuous  feeling,  every  religious  heart,  every 
man  of  honor,  every  poet,  every  philosopher,  the 
generosity  of  the  cities,  the  health  of  the  country, 
the  strong  arms  of  the  mechanic,  the  endurance  of 
farmers,  the  passionate  conscience  of  women,  the 
sympathy  of  distant  nations,  —  all  rally  to  its  sup 
port. 

Of  course,  we  are  assuming  the  firmness  of  the 
policy  thus  declared.  It  must  not  be  a  paper  proc 
lamation.  We  confide  that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  in  ear 
nest,  and,  as  he  has  been  slow  in  making  up  his 
mind,  has  resisted  the  importunacy  of  parties  and 
of  events  to  the  latest  moment,  he  will  be  as  abso 
lute  in  his  adhesion.  Not  only  will  he  repeat  and 
follow  up  his  stroke,  but  the  nation  will  add  its  ir 
resistible  strength.  If  the  ruler  has  duties,  so  has 
the  citizen.  In  times  like  these,  when  the  nation  is 
imperilled,  what  man  can,  without  shame,  receive 
good  news  from  day  to  day  without  giving  good 
news  of  himself  ?  What  right  has  any  one  to  read 


EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.         299 

in  the  journals  tidings  of  victories,  if  he  has  not 
bought  them  by  his  own  valor,  treasure,  personal 
sacrifice,  or  by  service  as  good  in  his  own  depart 
ment?  With  this  blot  removed  from  our  national 
honor,  this  heavy  load  lifted  off  the  national  heart, 
we  shall  not  fear  henceforward  to  show  our  faces 
among  mankind.  We  shall  cease  to  be  hypocrites 
and  pretenders,  but  what  we  have  styled  our  free 
institutions  will  be  such. 

In  the  light  of  this  event  the  public  distress  be 
gins  to  be  removed.  What  if  the  brokers'  quota 
tions  show  our  stocks  discredited,  and  the  gold  dol 
lar  costs  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  cents  ? 
These  tables  are  fallacious.  Every  acre  in  the 
Free  States  gained  substantial  value  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  September.  The  cause  of  disunion  and 
war  has  been  reached  and  begun  to  be  removed. 
Every  man's  house-lot  and  garden  are  relieved  of 
the  malaria  which  the  purest  winds  and  strongest 
sunshine  could  not  penetrate  and  purge.  The  ter 
ritory  of  the  Union  shines  to-day  with  a  lustre 
which  every  European  emigrant  can  discern  from 
far ;  a  sign  of  inmost  security  and  permanence.  Is 
it  feared  that  taxes  will  check  immigration?  That 
depends  on  what  the  taxes  are  spent  for.  If  they 
go  to  fill  up  this  yawning  Dismal  Swamp,  which  en 
gulfed  armies  and  populations,  and  created  plague,- 
and  neutralized  hitherto  all  the  vast  capabilities  of 


300  SPEECH  ON  THE 

this  continent,  —  then  this  taxation,  which  makes 
the  land  wholesome  and  habitable,  and  will  draw  all 
men  unto  it,  is  the  best  investment  in  which  prop 
erty-holder*  ever  lodged  his  earnings. 

Whilst  we  have  pointed  out  the  opportuneness  of 
the  Proclamation,  it  remains  to  be  said  that  the 
President  had  no  choice.  lie  might  look  wistfully 
for  what  variety  of  courses  lay  open  to  him  ;  every 
line  but  one  was  closed  up  with  firs.  This  one,  too, 
bristled  with  danger,  but  through  it  was  the  sole 
safety.  The  measure  he  has  adopted  was  impera 
tive.  It  is  wonderful  to  see  the  unseasonable  senil 
ity  of  what  is  called  the  Peace  Party,  through  all  its 
masks,  blinding  their  eyes  to  the  main  feature  of 
the  war,  namely,  its  inevitableness.  The  war  ex 
isted  long  before  the  cannonade  of  Sumter,  and 
could  not  be  postponed.  It  might  have  begun  other 
wise  or  elsewhere,  but  war  was  in  the  minds  and 
bones  of  the  combatants,  it  was  written  on  the  iron 
leaf,  and  you  might  as  easily  dodge  gravitation.  If 
we  had  consented  to  a  peaceable  secession  of  the 
Rebels,  the  divided  sentiment  of  the  Border  Stated 
made  peaceable  secession  impossible,  the  insatiable 
temper  of  the  South  made  it  impossible,  and  the 
slaves  on  the  border,  wherever  the  border  might  be, 
were  an  incessant  fuel  to  rekindle  the  fire.  Give 
'the  Confederacy  New  Orleans,  Charleston,  and  Rich 
mond,  and  they  would  have  demanded  St.  Louis 


EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.         301 

and  Baltimore.  Give  them  these,  and  they  would 
have  insisted  on  Washington.  Give  them  Wash 
ington,  and  they  would  have  assumed  the  army  and 
navy,  and,  through  these,  Philadelphia,  New  York, 
and  Boston.  It  looks  as  if  the  battle-field  would 
have  been  at  least  as  large  in  that  event  as  it  is 
now.  The  war  was  formidable,  but  could  not  be 
avoided.  The  war  was  and  is  an  immense  mischief, 
but  brought  with  it  the  immense  benefit  of  drawing 
a  line  and  rallying  the  Free  States  to  fix  it  impas 
sably,  —  preventing  the  whole  force  of  Southern 
connection  and  influence  throughout  the  North  from 
distracting  every  city  with  endless  confusion,  de 
taching  that  force  and  reducing  it  to  handfuls,  and, 
in  the  progress  of  hostilities,  disinfecting  us  of  our 
habitual  proclivity,  through  the  affection  of  trade 
and  the  traditions  of  the  Democratic  party,  to  follow 
Southern  leading. 

O 

These  necessities  which  have  dictated  the  conduct 
of  the  Federal  Government  are  overlooked  especial 
ly  by  our  foreign  critics.  The  popular  statement 
of  the  opponents  of  the  war  abroad  is  the  impossi 
bility  of  our  success.  "  If  you  could  add,"  say  they, 
"  to  your  strength  the  whole  army  of  England,  of 
France  and  of  Austria,  you  could  not  coerce  eight 
millions  of  people  to  come  under  this  Government 
against  their  will."  This  is  an  odd  thing  for  an 
Englishman,  a  Frenchman,  or  an  Austrian  to  say, 


302  SPEECH  ON  THE 

who  remembers  Europe  of  the  last  seventy  years, 
—  the  condition  of  Italy,  until  1859,  —  of  Poland, 
since  1793,  —  of  France,  of  French  Algiers,  —  of 
British  Ireland,  and  British  India.  But,  granting 
the  truth,  rightly  read,  of  the  historical  aphorism, 
that  "  the  people  always  conquer,"  it  is  to  be  noted 
that,  in  the  Southern  States,  the  tenure  of  land 
and  the  local  laws,  with  slavery,  give  the  social  sys 
tem  not  a  democratic  but  an  aristocratic  complex 
ion  ;  and  those  States  have  shown  every  year  a  more 
hostile  and  aggressive  temper,  until  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  forced  us  into  the  war.  And  the 
aim  of  the  war  on  our  part  is  indicated  by  the  aim 
of  the  President's  Proclamation,  namely,  to  break 
up  the  false  combination  of  Southern  society,  to 
destroy  the  piratic  feature  in  it  which  makes  it  our 
enemy  only  as  it  is  the  enemy  of  the  human  race, 
and  so  allow  its  reconstruction  on  a  just  and  health 
ful  basis.  Then  new  affinities  will  act,  the  old  re 
pulsion  will  cease,  and,  the  cause  of  war  being  re 
moved,  Nature  and  trade  may  be  trusted  to  establish 
a  lasting  peace. 

We  think  we  cannot  overstate  the  wisdom  •  and 
benefit  of  this  act  of  the  Government.  The  malig 
nant  cry  of  the  Secession  press  within  the  Free 
States,  and  the  recent  action  of  the  Confederate 
Congress,  are  decisive  as  to  its  efficiency  and  cor 
rectness  of  aim.  Not  less  so  is  the  silent  joy  which 


EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.          303 

has  greeted  it  in  all  generous  hearts,  and  the  new 
hope  it  has  breathed  into  the  world.  It  was  well 
to  delay  the  steamers  at  the  wharves  until  this  edict 
could  be  put  on  board.  It  will  be  an  insurance  to 
the  ship  as  it  goes  plunging  through  the  sea  with 
glad  tidings  to  all  people.  Happy  are  the  young, 
who  find  the  pestilence  cleansed  out  of  the  earth, 
leaving  open  to  them  an  honest  career.  Happy  the 
old,  who  see  Nature  purified  before  they  depart. 
Do  not  let  the  dying  die  :  hold  them  back  to  this 
world,  until  you  have  charged  their  ear  and  heart 
with  this  message  to  other  spiritual  societies,  an 
nouncing  the  melioration  of  our  planet : 

"  Incertainties  now  crown  themselves  assured, 
And  Peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless  age." 

Meantime  that  ill-fated,  much-injured  race  which 
the  Proclamation  respects  will  lose  somewhat  of  the 
dejection  sculptured  for  ages  in  their  bronzed  coun 
tenance,  uttered  in  the  wailing  of  their  plaintive 
music,  —  a  race  naturally  benevolent,  docile,  indus 
trious,  and  whose  very  miseries  sprang  from  their 
great  talent  for  usefulness,  which,  in  a  more  moral 
age,  will  not  only  defend  their  independence,  but 
will  give  them  a  rank  among  nations. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

REMARKS  AT  THE  FUNERAL  SERVICES  HELD  IN  CONCORD, 
APRIL  19,  1865. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


meet  under  the  gloom  of  a  calamity  which 
darkens  down  over  the  minds  of  good  men  in  all 
civil  society,  as  the  fearful  tidings  travel  over  sea, 
over  land,  from  country  to  country,  like  the  shadow 
of  an  uncalculated  eclipse  over  the  planet.  Old  as 
history  is,  and  manifold  as  are  its  tragedies,  I  doubt 
if  any  death  has  caused  so  much  pain  to  mankind 
as  this  has  caused,  or  will  cause,  on  its  announce 
ment  ;  and  this,  not  so  much  because  nations  are 
by  modern  arts  brought  so  closely  together,  as  be 
cause  of  the  mysterious  hopes  and  fears  which,  in 
the  present  day,  are  connected  with  the  name  and 
institutions  of  America. 

In  this  country,  on  Saturday,  every  one  was 
struck  dumb,  and  saw  at  first  only  deep  bfelow  deep, 
as  he  meditated  on  the  ghastly  blow.  And  perhaps, 
at  this  hour,  when  the  coffin  which  contains  the 
dust  of  the  President  sets  forward  on  its  long  march 
through  mourning  States,  on  its  way  to  his  home  in 
Illinois,  we  might  well  be  silent,  and  suffer  the  aw 
ful  voices  of  the  time  to  thunder  to  us.  Yes,  but 


308  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  first  despair  was  brief  :  the  man  was  not  so  to 
be  mourned.  He  was  the  most  active  and  hopeful 
of  men  ;  and  his  work  had  not  perished :  but  accla 
mations  of  praise  for  the  task  he  had  accomplished 
burst  out  into  a  song  of  triumph,  which  even  tears 
for  his  death  cannot  keep  down. 

The  President  stood  before  us  as  a  man  of  the 
people.  He  was  thoroughly  American,  had  never 
crossed  the  sea,  had  never  been  spoiled  by  English 
insularity  or  French  dissipation  ;  a  quite  native, 
aboriginal  man,  as  an  acorn  from  the  oak ;  no  ap 
ing  of  foreigners,  no  frivolous  accomplishments, 
Kentuckian  born,  working  on  a  farm,  a  flatboat- 
man,  a  captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  war,  a  country 
lawyer,  a  representative  in  the  rural  Legislature  of 
Illinois  ;  —  on  such  modest  foundations  the  broad 
structure  of  his  fame  was  laid.  How  slowly,  and 
yet  by  happily  prepared  steps,  he  came  to  his  place. 
All  of  us  remember,  —  it  is  only  a  history  of  five 
or  six  years,  —  the  surprise  and  the  disappointment 
of  the  country  at  his  first  nomination  by  the  Con 
vention  at  Chicago.  Mr.  Seward,  then  in  the  cul 
mination  of  his  good  fame,  was  the  favorite  of  the 
Eastern  States.  And  when  the  new  and  compara 
tively  unknown  name  of  Lincoln  was  announced, 
(notwithstanding  the  report  of  the  acclamations  of 
that  Convention,)  we  heard  the  result  coldly  and 
sadly.  It  seemed  too  rash,  on  a  purely  local  repu- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  309 

tation,  to  build  so  grave  a  trust  in  such  anxious 
times  ;  and  men  naturally  talked  of  the  chances  in 
politics  as  incalculable.  But  it  turned  out  not  to 
be  chance.  The  profound  good  opinion  which  the 
people  of  Illinois  and  of  the  West  had  conceived  of 
him,  and  which  they  had  imparted  to  their  col 
leagues  that  they  also  might  justify  themselves  to 
their  constituents  at  home,  was  not  rash,  though 
they  did  not  begin  to  know  the  riches  of  his  worth. 
A  plain  man  of  the  people,  an  extraordinary  for 
tune  attended  him.  He  offered  no  shining  qualities 
at  the  first  encounter ;  he  did  not  offend  by  superior 
ity.  He  had  a  face  and  manner  which  disarmed 
suspicion,  which  inspired  confidence,  which  con 
firmed  good-will.  He  was  a  man  without  vices.  He 
had  a  strong  sense  of  duty,  which  it  was  very  easy 
for  him  to  obey.  Then,  he  had  what  farmers  call 
a  long  head  ;  was  excellent  in  working  out  the  sum 
for  himself ;  in  arguing  his  case  and  convincing  you 
fairly  and  firmly.  Then,  it  turned  out  that  he  was 
a  great  worker ;  had  prodigious  faculty  of  perform 
ance  ;  worked  easily.  A  good  worker  is  so  rare  ; 
everybody  has  some  disabling  quality.  In  a  host 
of  young  men  that  start  together  and  promise  so 
many  brilliant  leaders  for  the  next  age,  each  fails 
on  trial ;  one  by  bad  health,  one  by  conceit,  or  by 
love  of  pleasure,  or  lethargy,  or  an  ugly  temper,  — 
each  has  some  disqualifying  fault  that  throws  him 


310  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

out  of  the  career.  But  this  man  was  sound  to  the 
core,  cheerful,  persistent,  all  right  for  labor,  and 
liked  nothing  so  well. 

Then,  he  had  a  vast  good-nature,  which  made  him 
tolerant  and  accessible  to  all ;  fair-minded,  leaning 
to  the  claim  of  the  petitioner  ;  affable,  and  not  sen 
sible  to  the  affliction  which  the  innumerable  visits 
paid  to  him  when  President  would  have  brought 
to  any  one  else.  And  how  this  good-nature  became 
a  noble  humanity,  in  many  a  tragic  case  which  the 
events  of  the  war  brought  to  him,  every  one  will  re 
member  ;  and  with  what  increasing  tenderness  he 
dealt  when  a  whole  race  was  thrown  on  his  compas 
sion.  The  poor  negro  said  of  him,  on  an  impres 
sive  occasion,  "  Massa  Linkum  am  eberywhere." 

Then  his  broad  good-humor,  running  easily  into 
jocular  talk,  in  which  he  delighted  and  in  which  he 
excelled,  was  a  rich  gift  to  this  wise  man.  It  en 
abled  him  to  keep  his  secret ;  to  meet  every  kind  of 
man  and  every  rank  in  society ;  to  take  off  the  edge 
of  the  severest  decisions  ;  to  mask  his  own  purpose 
and  sound  his  companion ;  and  to  catch  with  true 
instinct  the  temper  of  every  company  he  addressed. 
And,  more  than  all,  it  is  to  a  man  of  severe  labor, 
in  anxious  and  exhausting  crises,  the  natural  restor 
ative,  good  as  sleep,  and  is  the  protection  of  the 
overdriven  brain  against  rancor  and  insanity. 

He  is  the  author  of  a  multitude  of  good  sayings, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  311 

so  disguised  as  pleasantries  that  it  is  certain  they 
had  no  reputation  at  first  but  as  jests  ;  and  only 
later,  by  the  very  acceptance  and  adoption  they  find 
in  the  mouths  of  millions,  turn  out  to  be  the  wisdom 
of  the  hour.  I  am  sure  if  this  man  had  ruled  in  a 
period  of  less  facility  of  printing",  he  would  have 
become  mythological  in  a  very  few  years,  like  2Esop 
or  Pilpay,  or  one  of  the  Seven  Wise  Masters,  by 
his  fables  and  proverbs.  But  the  weight  and  pene 
tration  of  many  passages  in  his  letters,  messages 
and  speeches,  hidden  now  by  the  very  closeness  of 
their  application  to  the  moment,  are  destined  here 
after  to  wide  fame.  What  pregnant  definitions ; 
what  unerring  common  sense ;  what  foresight ;  and, 
on  great  occasion,  what  lofty,  and  more  than  na 
tional,  what  humane  tone!  His  brief  speech  at 
Gettysburg  will  not  easily  be  surpassed  by  words 
on  any  recorded  occasion.  This,  and  one  other 
American  speech,  that  of  John  Brown  to  the  court 
that  tried  him,  and  a  part  of  Kossuth's  speech  at 
Birmingham,  can  only  be  compared  with  each 
other,  and  with  no  fourth. 

His  occupying  the  chair  of  State  was  a  triumph 
of  the  good-sense  of  mankind,  and  of  the  public 
conscience.  This  middle-class  country  had  got  a 
middle-class  President,  at  last.  Yes,  in  manners 
and  sympathies,  but  not  in  powers,  for  his  powers 
were  superior.  This  man  grew  according  to  the 


312  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

need.  His  mind  mastered  the  problem  of  the  day ; 
and,  as  the  problem  grew,  so  did  his  comprehen 
sion  of  it.  Rarely  was  man  so  fitted  to  the  event. 
In  the  midst  of  fears  and  jealousies,  in  the  Babel 
of  counsels  and  parties,  this  man  wrought  inces 
santly  with  all  his  might  and  all  his  honesty,  labor 
ing  to  find  what  the  people  wanted,  and  how  to 
obtain  that.  It  cannot  be  said  there  is  any  exag 
geration  of  his  worth.  If  ever  a  man  was  fairly 
tested,  he  was.  There  was  no  lack  of  resistance, 
nor  of  slander,  nor  of  ridicule.  The  times  have  al 
lowed  no  state  secrets ;  the  nation  has  been  in  such 
ferment,  such  multitudes  had  to  be  trusted,  that  no 
secret  could  be  kept.  Every  door  was  ajar,  and  we 
know  all  that  befell. 

Then,  what  an  occasion  was  the  whirlwind  of  the 
war.  Here  was  place  for  no  holiday  magistrate, 
no  fair-weather  sailor  ;  the  new  pilot  was  hurried 
to  the  helm  in  a  tornado.  In  four  years,  —  four 
years  of  battle-days,  —  his  endurance,  his  fertility 
of  resources,  his  magnanimity,  were  sorely  tried 
and  never  found  wanting.  There,  by  his  courage, 
his  justice,  his  even  temper,  his  fertile  counsel,  his 
humanity,  he  stood  a  heroic  figure  in  the  centre  of 
a  heroic  epoch.  He  is  the  true  history  of  the 
American  people  in  his  time.  Step  by  step  he 
walked  before  them;  slow  with  their  slowness, 
quickening  his  march  by  theirs,  the  true  represen- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  313 

tative  of  this  continent ;  an  entirely  public  man ; 
father  of  his  country,  the  pulse  of  twenty  millions 
throbbing  in  his  heart,  the  thought  of  their  minds 
articulated  by  his  tongue. 

Adam  Smith  remarks  that  the  axe,  which  in 
Houbraken's  portraits  of  British  kings  and  wor 
thies  is  engraved  under  those  who  have  suffered  at 
the  block,  adds  a  certain  lofty  charm  to  the  picture. 
And  who  does  not  see,  even  in  this  tragedy  so  re 
cent,  how  fast  the  terror  and  ruin  of  the  massacre 
are  already  burning  into  glory  around  the  victim  ? 
Far  happier  this  fate  than  to  have  lived  to  be 
wished  away;  to  have  watched  the  decay  of  his 
own  faculties ;  to  have  seen,  —  perhaps  even  he, 
—  the  proverbial  ingratitude  of  statesmen ;  to  have 
seen  mean  men  preferred.  Had  he  not  lived  long 
enough  to  keep  the  greatest  promise  that  ever  man 
made  to  his  fellow-men,  —  the  practical  abolition 
of  slavery  ?  He  had  seen  Tennessee,  Missouri  and 
Maryland  emancipate  their  slaves.  He  had  seen 
Savannah,  Charleston  and  Richmond  surrendered  ; 
had  seen  the  main  army  of  the  rebellion  lay  down 
its  arms.  He  had  conquered  the  public  opinion  of 
Canada,  England  and  France.  Only  Washington 
can  compare  with  him  in  fortune. 

And  what  if  it  should  turn  out,  in  the  unfolding 
of  the  web,  that  he  had  reached  the  term ;  that 
this  heroic  deliverer  could  no  longer  serve  us ;  that 


314  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  rebellion  had  touched  its  natural  conclusion, 
and  what  remained  to  be  done  required  new  and 
uncommitted  hands,  —  a  new  spirit  born  out  of  the 
ashes  of  the  war;  and  that  Heaven,  wishing  to 
show  the  world  a  completed  benefactor,  shall  make 
him  serve  his  country  even  more  by  his  death  than 
by  his  life  ?  Nations,  like  kings,  are  not  good  by 
facility  and  complaisance.  "  The  kindness  of  kings 
consists  in  justice  and  strength."  Easy  good-na 
ture  has  been  the  dangerous  foible  of  the  Republic, 
and  it  was  necessary  that  its  enemies  should  out 
rage  it,  and  drive  us  to  unwonted  firmness,  to  se 
cure  the  salvation  of  this  country  in  the  next  ages. 
The  ancients  believed  in  a  serene  and  beautiful 
Genius  which  ruled  in  the  affairs  of  nations  ;  which, 
with  a  slow  but  stern  justice,  carried  forward  the 
fortunes  of  certain  chosen  houses,  weeding  out  sin 
gle  offenders  or  offending  families,  and  securing 
at  last  the  firm  prosperity  of  the  favorites  of 
Heaven.  It  was  too  narrow  a  view  of  the  Eternal 
Nemesis.  There  is  a  serene  Providence  which  rules 
the  fate  of  nations,  which  makes  little  account  of 
time,  little  of  one  generation  or  race,  makes  no  ac 
count  of  disasters,  conquers  alike  by  what  is  called 
defeat  or  by  what  is  called  victory,  thrusts  aside  en 
emy  and  obstruction,  crushes  everything  immoral  as 
inhuman,  and  obtains  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
best  race  by  the  sacrifice  of  everything  which  resists 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  315 

the  moral  laws  of  the  world.  It  makes  its  own  in 
struments,  creates  the  man  for  the  time,  trains  him 
in  poverty,  inspires  his  genius,  and  arms  him  for 
his  task.  It  has  given  every  race  its  own  talent, 
and  ordains  that  only  that  race  which  combines 
perfectly  with  the  virtues  of  all  shall  endure. 


HARVARD  COMMEMORATION  SPEECH. 

JULY  21,  1865. 


HARVARD  COMMEMORATION    SPEECH. 
JULY  21, 1865. 


ME.  CHAIRMAN  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

With  whatever  opinion  we  conie  here,  I  think  it 
is  not  in  man  to  see,  without  a  feeling  of  pride  and 
pleasure,  a  tried  soldier,  the  armed  defender  of  the 
right.  I  think  that  in  these  last  years  all  opinions 
have  been  affected  by  the  magnificent  and  stupen 
dous  spectacle  which  Divine  Providence  has  offered 
us  of  the  energies  that  slept  in  the  children  of  this 
country,  —  that  slept  and  have  awakened.  I  see 
thankfully  those  that  are  here,  but  dim  eyes  in 
vain  explore  for  some  who  are  not. 

The  old  Greek  Heraclitus  said,  "  War  is  the 
Father  of  all  things."  He  said  it,  no  doubt,  as  sci 
ence,  but  we  of  this  day  can  repeat  it  as  political 
and  social  truth.  War  passes  the  power  of  all 
chemical  solvents,  breaking  up  the  old  adhesions 
and  allowing  the  atoms  of  society  to  take  a  new 
order.  It  is  not  the  Government,  but  the  War, 
that  has  appointed  the  good  generals,  sifted  out 
the  pedants,  put  in  the  new  and  vigorous  blood. 


320  SPEECH  AT  THE 

The  War  has  lifted  many  other  people  besides 
Grant  and  Sherman  into  their  true  places.  Even 
Divine  Providence,  we  may  say,  always  seems  to 
work  after  a  certain  military  necessity.  Every  na 
tion  punishes  the  General  who  is  not  victorious.  It 
is  a  rule  in  games  of  chance  that  the  cards  beat  all 
the  players,  and  revolutions  disconcert  and  outwit 
all  the  insurgents. 

The  revolutions  carry  their  own  points,  some 
times  to  the  ruin  of  those  who  set  them  on  foot. 
The  proof  that  war  also  is  within  the  highest  right, 
is  a  marked  benefactor  in  the  hands  of  Divine 
Providence,  is  its  morale.  The  war  gave  back  in 
tegrity  to  this  erring  and  immoral  nation.  It 
charged  with  power,  peaceful,  amiable  men,  to 
whose  life  war  and  discord  were  abhorrent.  What 
an  infusion  of  character  went  out  from  this  and 
other  colleges !  What  an  infusion  of  character 
down  to  the  ranks  !  The  experience  has  been  uni 
form  that  it  is  the  gentle  soul  that  makes  the  firm 
hero  after  all.  It  is  easy  to  recall  the  mood  in 
which  our  young  men,  snatched  from  every  peace 
ful  pursuit,  went  to  the  war.  Many  of  them  had 
never  handled  a  gun.  They  said,  "  It  is  not  in  me 
to  resist.  I  go  because  I  must.  It  is  a  duty  which 
I  shall  never  forgive  myself  if  I  decline.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  can  make  a  soldier.  I  may  be  very 
clumsy.  Perhaps  I  shall  be  timid ;  but  you  can 


HARVARD   COMMEMORATION.  321 

rely  on  me.  Only  one  thing  is  certain,  I  can  well 
die,  but  I  cannot  afford  to  misbehave." 

In  fact  the  infusion  of  culture  and  tender  hu 
manity  from  these  scholars  and  idealists  who  went 
to  the  war  in  their  own  despite,  —  God  knows  they 
had  no  fury  for  killing  their  old  friends  and  coun 
trymen,  —  had  its  signal  and  lasting  effect.  It  was 
found  that  enthusiasm  was  a  more  potent  ally  than 
science  and  munitions  of  war  without  it.  "  It  is  a 
principle  of  war,"  said  Napoleon,  "  that  when  you 
can  use  the  thunderbolt  you  must  prefer  it  to  the 
cannon."  Enthusiasm  was  the  thunderbolt.  Here 
in  this  little  Massachusetts,  in  smaller  Rhode  Is 
land,  in  this  little  nest  of  New  England  republics 
it  flamed  out  when  the  guilty  gun  was  aimed  at 
Sumter. 

Mr.  Chairman,  standing  here  in  Harvard  Col 
lege,  the  parent  of  all  the  colleges ;  in  Massachu 
setts,  the  parent  of  all  the  North ;  when  I  consider 
her  influence  on  the  country  as  a  principal  planter 
of  the  Western  States,  and  now,  by  her  teachers, 
preachers,  journalists  and  books,  as  well  as  by  traf 
fic  and  production,  the  diffuser  of  religious,  liter 
ary  and  political  opinion  ;  —  and  when  I  see  how 
irresistible  the  convictions  of  Massachusetts  are  in 
these  swarming  populations,  —  I  think  the  littlo 
state  bigger  than  I  knew.  When  her  blood  is  up 
she  has  a  fist  big  enough  to  knock  down  an  empire. 

VOL.  XI.  21 


322    HARVARD   COMMEMORATION  SPEECH. 

And  her  blood  was  roused.  Scholars  changed  the 
black  coat  for  the  blue.  A  single  company  in  the 
forty-fourth  Massachusetts  regiment  contained  thir 
ty-five  sons  of  Harvard.  You  all  know  as  well  as 
I  the  story  of  these  dedicated  men,  who  knew  well 
on  what  duty  they  went,  —  whose  fathers  and  moth 
ers  said  of  each  slaughtered  son,  "  We  gave  him 
up  when  he  enlisted."  One  mother  said,  when  her 
son  was  offered  the  command  of  the  first  negro  regi 
ment,  "  If  he  accepts  it,  I  shall  be  as  proud  as  if  I 
had  heard  that  he  was  shot."  These  men,"  thus  ten 
der,  thus  high-bred,  thus  peaceable,  were  always 
in  the  front  and  always  employed.  They  might 
say,  with  their  forefathers  the  old  Norse  Vikings, 
"  We  sung  the  mass  of  lances  from  morning  until 
evening."  And  in  how  many  cases  it  chanced, 
when  the  hero  had  fallen,  they  who  came  by  night 
to  his  funeral  on  the  morrow  returned  to  the  war 
path  to  show  his  slayers  the  way  to  death  ! 

Ah !  young  brothers,  all  honor  and  gratitude  to 
you,  —  you,  manly  defenders,  Liberty's  and  Human 
ity's  body-guard  !  We  shall  not  again  disparage 
America,  now  that  we  have  seen  what  men  it  will 
bear.  We  see  —  we  thank  you  for  it  —  a  new  era, 
worth  to  mankind  all  the  treasure  and  all  the  lives 
it  has  cost ;  yes,  worth  to  the  world  the  lives  of  all 
this  generation  of  American  men,  if  they  had  been 
demanded. 


EDITORS'   ADDRESS. 

MASSACHUSETTS   QUARTERLY  REVIEW,  DECEMBER,  1847. 


EDITORS'   ADDRESS. 


THE  American  people  are  fast  opening  their  own 
destiny.  The  material  basis  is  of  such  extent  that 
no  folly  of  man  can  quite  subvert  it ;  for  the  terri 
tory  is  a  considerable  fraction  of  the  planet,  and  the 
population  neither  loath  nor  inexpert  to  use  their 
advantages.  Add,  that  this  energetic  race  derive 
an  unprecedented  material  power  from  the  new 
arts,  from  the  expansions  effected  by  public  schools, 
cheap  postage  and  a  cheap  press,  from  the  telescope, 
the  telegraph,  the  railroad,  steamship,  steam-ferry, 
steam -mill;  from  domestic  architecture,  chemical 
agriculture,  from  ventilation,  from  ice,  ether,  caout 
chouc,  and  innumerable  inventions  and  manufac 
tures. 

A  scholar  who  has  been  reading  of  the  fabulous 
magnificence  of  Assyria  and  Persia,  of  Rome  and 
Constantinople,  leaves  his  library  and  takes  his 
seat  in  a  railroad-car,  where  he  is  importuned  by 
newsboys  with  journals  still  wet  from  Liverpool 
and  Havre,  with  telegraphic  despatches  not  yet  fifty 
minutes  old  from  Buffalo  and  Cincinnati.  At  the 


326  EDITORS'  ADDRESS. 

screams  of  the  steam-whistle,  the  train  quits  city 
and  suburbs,  darts  away  into  the  interior,  drops 
every  man  at  his  estate  as  it  whirls  along,  and 
shows  our  traveller  what  tens  of  thousands  of  pow 
erful  and  weaponed  men,  science-armed  and  society- 
armed,  sit  at  large  in  this  ample  region,  obscure 
from  their  numbers  and  the  extent  of  the  domain. 
He  reflects  on  the  power  which  each  of  these  plain 
republicans  can  employ  ;  how  far  these  chains  of 
intercourse  and  travel  reach,  interlock,  and  ramify  ; 
what  levers,  what  pumps,  what  exhaustive  analyses 
are  applied  to  nature  for  the  benefit  of  masses  of 
men.  Then  he  exclaims,  What  a  negro-fine  royalty 
is  that  of  Jamschid  and  Solomon  !  What  a  sub 
stantial  sovereignty  does  my  townsman  possess !  A 
man  who  has  a  hundred  dollars  to  dispose  of,  —  a 
hundred  dollars  over  his  bread,  —  is  rich  beyond 
the  dreams  of  the  Cassars. 

Keep  our  eyes  as  long  as  we  can  on  this  pic 
ture,  we  cannot  stave  off  the  ulterior  question, — 
the  famous  question  of  Cineas  to  Pyrrhus,  —  the 
WHERE  TO  of  all  this  power  and  population,  these 
surveys  and  inventions,  this  taxing  and  tabulating, 
mill-privilege,  roads,  and  mines.  The  aspect  this 
country  presents  is  a  certain  maniacal  activity,  an 
immense  apparatus  of  cunning  machinery  which 
turns  out,  at  last,  some  Nuremberg  toys.  Has  it 
generated,  as  great  interests  do,  any  intellectual 


MASSACHUSETTS  QUARTERLY  REVIEW.    327 

power  ?  Where  are  the  works  of  the  imagination  — 
the  surest  test  of  a  national  genius  ?  At  least  as 
far  as  the  purpose  and  genius  of  America  is  yet  re 
ported  in  any  book,  it  is  a  sterility  and  no  genius. 

One  would  say  there  is  nothing  colossal  in  the 
country  but  its  geography  and  its  material  activi 
ties  ;  that  the  moral  and  intellectual  effects  are  not 
on  the  same  scale  with  the  trade  and  production. 
There  is  no  speech  heard  but  that  of  auctioneers, 
newsboys,  and  the  caucus.  Where  is  the  great 
breath  of  the  New  World,  the  voice  of  aboriginal 
nations  opening  new  eras  with  hymns  of  lofty  cheer  ? 
Our  books  and  fine  arts  are  imitations  ;  there  is  a 
fatal  incuriosity  and  disinclination  in  our  educated 
men  to  new  studies  and  the  interrogation  of  nature. 
We  have  taste,  critical  talent,  good  professors, 
good  commentators,  but  a  lack  of  male  energy. 
What  more  serious  calamity  can  befall  a  people 
than  a  constitutional  dulness  and  limitation  ?  The 
moral  influence  of  the  intellect  is  wanting.  We 
hearken  in  vain  for  any  profound  voice  speaking  to 
the  American  heart,  cheering  timid  good  men,  ani 
mating  the  youth,  consoling  the  defeated,  and  in 
telligently  announcing  duties  which  clothe  life  with 
joy,  and  endear  the  face  of  land  and  sea  to  men. 
It  is  a  poor  consideration  that  the  country  wit  is 
precocious,  and,  as  we  say,  practical ;  that  political 
interests  on  so  broad  a  scale  as  ours  are  adminis- 


328  EDITORS'  ADDRESS 

tered  by  little  men  with  some  saucy  village  talent, 
by  deft  partisans,  good  cipherers  ;  strict  economists, 
quite  empty  of  all  superstition. 

Conceding  these  unfavorable  appearances,  it 
would  yet  be  a  poor  pedantry  to  read  the  fates  of 
this  country  from  these  narrow  data.  On  the  con 
trary,  we  are  persuaded  that  moral  and  material 
values  are  always  commensurate.  Every  material 
organization  exists  to  a  moral  end,  which  makes  the 
reason  of  its  existence.  Here  are  no  books,  but 
who  can  see  the  continent  with  its  inland  and  sur 
rounding  waters,  its  temperate  climates,  its  west- 
wind  breathing  vigor  through  all  the  year,  its  con 
fluence  of  races  so  favorable  to  the  highest  energy, 
and  the  infinite  glut  of  their  production,  without 
putting  new  queries  to  Destiny  as  to  the  purpose 
for  which  this  muster  of  nations  and  this  sudden 
creation  of  enormous  values  is  made  ? 

This  is  equally  the  view  of  science  and  of  patri 
otism.  We  hesitate  to  employ  a  word  so  much 
abused  as  patriotism,  whose  true  sense  is  almost 
the  reverse  of  its  popular  sense.  We  have  no  sym 
pathy  with  that  boyish  egotism,  hoarse  with  cheering 
for  one  side,  for  one  state,  for  one  town  :  the  right 
patriotism  consists  in  the  delight  which  springs 
from  contributing  our  peculiar  and  legitimate  ad 
vantages  to  the  benefit  of  humanity.  Every  foot 
of  soil  has  its  proper  quality ;  the  grape  on  two 


MASSACHUSETTS  QUARTERLY  REVIEW.    329 

sides  of  the  same  fence  lias  new  flavors ;  and  so 
every  acre  on  the  globe,  every  family  of  men,  every 
point  of  climate,  has  its  distinguishing  virtues. 
Certainly  then  this  country  does  not  lie  here  in 
the  sun  causeless  ;  and  though  it  may  not  be  easy 
to  define  its  influence,  men  feel  already  its  eman 
cipating  quality  in  the  careless  self-reliance  of  the 
manners,  in  the  freedom  of  thought,  in  the  direct 
roads  by  which  grievances  are  reached  and  re 
dressed,  and  even  in  the  reckless  and  sinister  poli 
tics,  not  less  than  in  purer  expressions.  Bad  as  it 
is,  this  freedom  leads  onward  and  upward,  —  to  a 
Columbia  of  thought  and  art,  which  is  the  last  and 
endless  end  of  Columbus' s  adventure. 

Lovers  of  our  country,  but  not  always  approvers 
of  the  public  counsels,  we  should  certainly  be  glad 
to  give  good  advice  in  politics.  We  have  not  been 
able  to  escape  our  national  and  endemic  habit,  and 
to  be  liberated  from  interest  in  the  elections  and  in 
public  affairs.  Nor  have  we  cared  to  disfranchise 
ourselves.  We  are  more  solicitous  than  others  to 
make  our  politics  clear  and  healthful,  as  we  believe 
politics  to  be  nowise  accidental  or  exceptional,  but 
subject  to  the  same  laws  with  trees,  earths,  and 
acids.  We  see  that  reckless  and  destructive  fury 
which  characterizes  the  lower  classes  of  American 
society,  and  which  is  pampered  by  hundreds  of  prof 
ligate  presses.  The  young  intriguers  who  drive  in 


330  EDITORS'  ADDRESS. 

bar-rooms  and  town-meetings  the  trade  of  politics, 
sagacious  only  to  seize  the  victorious  side,  have  put 
the  country  into  the  position  of  an  overgrown  bully, 
and  Massachusetts  finds  no  heart  or  head  to  give 
weight  and  efficacy  to  her  contrary  judgment.  In 
hours  when  it  seemed  only  to  need  one  just  word 
from  a  man  of  honor  to  have  vindicated  the  rights 
of  millions,  and  to  have  given  a  true  direction  to 
the  first  steps  of  a  nation,  we  have  seen  the  best 
understandings  of  New  England,  the  trusted  lead 
ers  of  her  counsels,  constituting  a  snivelling  and  de 
spised  opposition,  clapped  on  the  back  by  comfort 
able  capitalists  from  all  sections,  and  persuaded  to 
say,  We  are  too  old  to  stand  for  what  is  called  a 
New  England  sentiment  any  longer.  Rely  on  us 
for  commercial  representatives,  but  for  questions  of 
ethics,  —  who  knows  what  markets  may  be  opened  ? 
We  are  not  well,  we  are  not  in  our  seats,  when  jus 
tice  and  humanity  are  to  be  spoken  for. 

We  have  a  bad  war,  many  victories,  each  of 
which  converts  the  country  into  an  immense  chan 
ticleer  ;  and  a  very  insincere  political  opposition. 
The  country  needs  to  be  extricated  from  its  delir 
ium  at  once.  Public  affairs  are  chained  in  the 
same  law  with  private  ;  the  retributions  of  armed 
states  are  not  less  sure  and  signal  than  those  which 
come  to  private  felons.  The  facility  of  majorities 
is  no  protection  from  the  natural  sequence  of  their 


MASSACHUSETTS  QUARTERLY  REVIEW.    331 

own  acts.  Men  reason  badly,  but  nature  and  des 
tiny  are  logical. 

But,  whilst  we  should  think  our  pains  well  be 
stowed  if  we  could  cure  the  infatuation  of  states 
men,  and  should  be  sincerely  pleased  if  we  could 
give  a  direction  to  the  Federal  politics,  we  are  far 
from  believing  politics  the  primal  interest  of  men. 
On  the  contrary,  we  hold  that  the  laws  and  govern 
ors  cannot  possess  a  commanding  interest  for  any 
but  vacant  or  fanatical  people  ;  for  the  reason  that 
this  is  simply  a  formal  and  superficial  interest ;  and 
men  of  a  solid  genius  are  only  interested  in  substan 
tial  things. 

The  State,  like  the  individual,  should  rest  on  an 
ideal  basis.  Not  only  man  but  nature  is  injured  by 
the  imputation  that  man  exists  only  to  be  fattened 
with  bread,  but  he  lives  in  such  connection  with 
Thought  and  Fact  that  his  bread  is  surely  involved 
as  one  element  thereof,  but  is  not  its  end  and  aim. 
So  the  insight  which  commands  the  laws  and  con 
ditions  of  the  true  polity  precludes  forever  all  in 
terest  in  the  squabbles  of  parties.  As  soon  as  men 
have  tasted  the  enjoyment  of  learning,  friendship 
and  virtue,  for  which  the  State  exists,  the  prizes  of 
office  appear  polluted,  and  their  followers  outcasts. 

A  journal  that  would  meet  the  real  wants  of  this 
time  must  have  a  courage  and  power  sufficient  to 
solve  the  problems  which  the  great  groping  society 


332  EDITORS'  ADDRESS. 

around  us,  stupid  with  perplexity,  is  dumbly  explor 
ing.  Let  it  not  show  its  astuteness  by  dodging 
each  difficult  question  and  arguing  diffusely  every 
point  on  which  men  are  long  ago  unanimous.  Can 
it  front  this  matter  of  Socialism,  to  which  the 
names  of  Owen  and  Fourier  have  attached,  and 
dispose  of  that  question  ?  Will  it  cope  with  the 
allied  questions  of  Government,  Nonresistance, 
and  all  that  belongs  under  that  category  ?  Will  it 
measure  itself  with  the  chapter  on  Slavery,  in  some 
sort  the  special  enigma  of  the  time,  as  it  has  pro 
voked  against  it  a  sort  of  inspiration  and  enthusiasm 
singular  in  modern  history?  There  are  literary 
and  philosophical  reputations  to  settle.  The  name 
of  Swedenborg  has  in  this  very  time  acquired  new 
honors,  and  the  current  year  has  witnessed  the  ap 
pearance,  in  their  first  English  translation,  of  his 
manuscripts.  Here  is  an  unsettled  account  in  the 
book  of  Fame  ;  a  nebula  to  dim  eyes,  but  which 
great  telescopes  may  yet  resolve  into  a  magnificent 
system.  Here  is  the  standing  problem  of  Natural 
Science,  and  the  merits  of  her  great  interpreters 
to  be  determined  ;  the  encyclopaedical  Humboldt, 
and  the  intrepid  generalizations  collected  by  the 
author  of  the  "  Vestiges  of  Creation."  Here  is  the 
balance  to  be  adjusted  between  the  exact  French 
school  of  Cuvier,  and  the  genial  catholic  theorists, 
Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire,  Goethe,  Davy,  and  Agassiz. 


MASSACHUSETTS  QUARTERLY  REVIEW.    333 

Will  it  venture  into  the  thin  and  difficult  air  of 
that  school  where  the  secrets  of  structure  are  dis 
cussed  under  the  topics  of  mesmerism  and  the  twi 
lights  of  demonology  ? 

What  will  easily  seem  to  many  a  far  higher  ques 
tion  than  any  other  is  that  which  respects  the  em 
bodying  of  the  Conscience  of  the  period.  Is  the 
age  we  live  in  unfriendly  to  the  highest  powers  ;  to 
that  blending  of  the  affections  with  the  poetic  fac 
ulty  which  has  distinguished  the  Eeligious  Ages? 
We  have  a  better  opinion  of  the  economy  of  nature 
than  to  fear  that  those  varying  phases  which  hu 
manity  presents,  ever  leave  out  any  of  the  grand 
springs  of  human  action.  Mankind  for  the  mo 
ment  seem  to  be  in  search  of  a  religion.  The  Jew 
ish  cultus  is  declining ;  the  Divine,  or,  as  some  will 
say,  the  truly  Human,  hovers,  now  seen,  now  un 
seen,  before  us.  This  period  of  peace,  this  hour 
when  the  jangle  of  contending  churches  is  hushing 
or  hushed,  will  seem  only  the  more  propitious  to 
those  who  believe  that  man  need  not  fear  the  want 
of  religion,  because  they  know  his  religious  consti 
tution,  —  that  he  must  rest  on  the  moral  and  reli 
gious  sentiments,  as  the  motion  of  bodies  rests 
on  geometry.  In  the  rapid  decay  of  what  was 
called  religion,  timid  and  unthinking  people  fancy 
a  decay  of  the  hope  of  man.  But  the  moral  and 
religious  sentiments  meet  us  everywhere,  alike  in 


334  EDITORS'  ADDRESS. 

markets  as  in  churches,  A  God  starts  up  behind 
cotton  bales  also.  The  conscience  of  man  is  regen 
erated  as  is  the  atmosphere,  so  that  society  cannot 
be  debauched.  The  health  which  we  call  Virtue 
is  an  equipoise  which  easily  redresses  itself,  and  re 
sembles  those  rocking-stones  which  a  child's  finger 
can  move,  and  a  weight  of  many  hundred  tons  can 
not  overthrow. 

With  these  convictions,  a  few  friends  of  good  let 
ters  have  thought  fit  to  associate  themselves  for  the 
conduct  of  a  new  journal.  We  have  obeyed  the 
custom  and  convenience  of  the  time  in  adopting  this 
form  of  a  Review,  as  a  mould  into  which  all  metal 
most  easily  runs.  But  the  form  shall  not  be  suf 
fered  to  be  an  impediment.  The  name  might  con 
vey  the  impression  of  a  book  of  criticism,  and  that 
nothing  is  to  be  found  here  which  was  not  written 
expressly  for  the  Review  ;  but  good  readers  know 
that  inspired  pages  are  not  written  to  fill  a  space, 
but  for  inevitable  utterance  ;  and  to  such  our  jour 
nal  is  freely  and  solicitously  open,  even  though 
everything  else  be  excluded.  We  entreat  the  aid  of 
every  lover  of  truth  and  right,  and  let  these  princi 
ples  entreat  for  us.  We  rely  on  the  talents  and  in 
dustry  of  good  men  known  to  us,  but  much  more  on 
the  magnetism  of  truth,  which  is  multiplying  and 
educating  advocates  for  itself  and  friends  for  us. 
We  rely  on  the  truth  for  and  against  ourselves. 


WOMAN. 

A  LECTUKE  READ  BEFORE  THE  WOMAN'S    RIGHTS  CONVENTION, 
BOSTON,  SEPTEMBER  20,  1856. 


WOMAN. 


AMONG  those  movements  which  seem  to  be,  now 
and  then,  endemic  in  the  public  mind,  —  perhaps 
we  should  say,  sporadic,  —  rather  than  the  single 
inspiration  of  one  mind,  is  that  which  has  urged  on 
society  the  benefits  of  action  having  for  its  object 
a  benefit  to  the  position  of  Woman.  And  none  is 
more  seriously  interesting  to  every  healthful  and 
thoughtful  mind. 

In  that  race  which  is  now  predominant  over  all 
the  other  races  of  men,  it  was  a  cherished  belief 
that  women  had  an  oracular  nature.  They  are  more 
delicate  than  men,  —  delicate  as  iodine  to  light,  — 
and  thus  more  impressionable.  They  are  the  best 
index  of  the  coming  hour.  I  share  this  belief.  I 
think  their  words  are  to  be  weighed  ;  but  it  is  their 
inconsiderate  word,  —  according  to  the  rule,  '  take 
their  first  advice,  not  their  second :  '  as  Coleridge 
was  wont  to  apply  to  a  lady  for  her  judgment  in 
questions  of  taste,  and  accept  it ;  but  when  she  added 
—  "I  think  so,  because  "  —  "  Pardon  me,  madam," 
he  said,  "  leave  me  to  find  out  the  reasons  for  my- 

VOL.  xi.  22 


338  WOMAN. 

self."  In  this  sense,  as  more  delicate  mercuries  of 
the  imponderable  and  immaterial  influences,  what 
they  say  and  think  is  the  shadow  of  coming  events. 
Their  very  dolls  are  indicative.  Among  our  Norse 
ancestors,  Frigga  was  worshipped  as  the  goddess  of 
women.  "  Weirdes  all,"  said  the  Edda,  "  Frigga 
knoweth,  though  she  telleth  them  never."  That  is 
to  say,  all  wisdoms  Woman  knows  ;  though  she 
takes  them  for  granted,  and  does  not  explain  them 
as  discoveries,  like  the  understanding  of  man.  Men 
remark  figure  :  women  always  catch  the  expression. 
They  inspire  by  a  look,  and  pass  with  us  not  so 
much  by  what  they  say  or  do,  as  by  their  presence. 
They  learn  so  fast  and  convey  the  result  so  fast  as 
to  outrun  the  logic  of  their  slow  brother  and  make 
his  acquisitions  poor.  'T  is  their  mood  and  tone 
that  is  important.  Does  their  mind  misgive  them, 
or  are  they  firm  and  cheerful  ?  'T  is  a  true  report 
that  things  are  going  ill  or  well.  And  any  remark 
able  opinion  or  movement  shared  by  woman  will 
be  the  first  sign  of  revolution. 

Plato  said,  Women  are  the  same  as  men  in  fac 
ulty,  only  less  in  degree.  But  the  general  voice  of 
mankind  has  agreed  that  they  have  their  own 
strength ;  that  women  are  strong  by  sentiment ; 
that  the  same  mental  height  which  their  husbands 
attain  by  toil,  they  attain  by  sympathy  with  their 
husbands.  Man  is  the  will,  and  Woman  the  senti- 


WOMAN.  339 

ment.  In  this  ship  of  humanity,  Will  is  the  rud 
der,  and  Sentiment  the  sail :  when  Woman  af 
fects  to  steer,  the  rudder  is  only  a  masked  sail. 
When  women  engage  in  any  art  or  trade,  it  is  usu 
ally  as  a  resource,  not  as  a  primary  object.  The 
life  of  the  affections  is  primary  to  them,  so  that 
there  is  usually  no  employment  or  career  which 
they  will  not  with  their  own  applause  and  that  of 
society  quit  for  a  suitable  marriage.  And  they 
give  entirely  to  their  affections,  set  their  whole  for 
tune  on  the  die,  lose  themselves  eagerly  in  the  glory 
of  their  husbands  and  children.  Man  stands  aston 
ished  at  a  magnanimity  he  cannot  pretend  to.  Mrs. 
Lucy  Hutchinson,  one  of  the  heroines  of  the  English 
Commonwealth,  who  wrote  the  life  of  her  husband, 
the  Governor  of  Nottingham,  says,  "  If  he  esteemed 
her  at  a  higher  rate  than  she  in  herself  could  have 
deserved,  he  was  the  author  or  that  virtue  he  doted 
on,  while  she  only  reflected  his  own  glories  upon 
him.  All  that  she  was,  was  liim,  while  he  was  hers, 
and  all  that  she  is  now,  at  best,  but  his  pale  shade." 
As  for  Plato's  opinion,  it  is  true  that,  up  to  recent 
times,  in  no  art  or  science,  not  in  painting,  poetry, 
or  music,  have  they  produced  a  master-piece.  Till 
the  new  education  and  larger  opportunities  of  very 
modern  times,  this  position,  with  the  fewest  possi 
ble  exceptions,  has  always  been  true.  Sappho,  to 
be  sure,  in  the  Olympic  Games,  gained  the  crown 


340  WOMAN. 

over  Pindar.  But,  in  general,  no  mastery  in  either 
of  the  fine  arts  —  which  should,  one  would  say,  be 
the  arts  of  women  —  has  yet  been  obtained  by  them, 
equal  to  the  mastery  of  men  in  the  same.  The 
part  they  play  in  education,  in  the  care  of  the 
young  and  the  tuition  of  older  children,  is  their  or 
ganic  office  in  the  world.  So  much  sympathy  as 
they  have,  makes  them  inestimable  as  the  media 
tors  between  those  who  have  knowledge  and  those 
who  want  it :  besides,  their  fine  organization,  their 
taste,  and  love  of  details,  makes  the  knowledge  they 
give  better  in  their  hands. 

But  there  is  an  art  which  is  better  than  painting, 
poetry,  music,  or  architecture,  —  better  than  bot 
any,  geology,  or  any  science  ;  namely,  Conversa 
tion.  Wise,  cultivated,  genial  conversation  is  the 
last  flower  of  civilization  and  the  best  result  which 
life  has  to  offer  us,  —  a  cup  for  gods,  which  has  no 
repentance.  Conversation  is  our  account  of  our 
selves.  All  we  have,  all  we  can,  all  we  know,  is 
brought  into  play,  and  as  the  reproduction,  in  finer 
form,  of  all  our  havings. 

Women  are,  by  this  and  their  social  influence, 
the  civilizers  of  mankind.  What  is  civilization  ?  I 
answer,  the  power  of  good  women.  It  was  Burns's 
remark  when  he  first  came  to  Edinburgh  that  be 
tween  the  men  of  rustic  life  and  the  polite  world 
he  observed  little  difference ;  that  in  the  former, 


WOMAN.  341 

though  unpolished  by  fashion  and  unenlightened 
by  science,  he  had  found  much  observation  and 
much  intelligence  ;  but  a  refined  and  accomplished 
woman  was  a  being  almost  new  to  him,  and  of 
which  he  had  formed  a  very  inadequate  idea.  "  I 
like  women,"  said  a  clear-headed  man  of  the  world, 
"  they  are  so  finished."  They  finish  society,  man 
ners,  language.  Form  and  ceremony  are  their 
realm.  They  embellish  trifles.  All  these  ceremo 
nies  that  hedge  our  life  around  are  not  to  be  de 
spised,  and  when  we  have  become  habituated  to 
them  cannot  be  dispensed  with.  No  woman  can 
despise  them  with  impunity.  Their  genius  delights 
in  ceremonies,  in  forms,  in  decorating  life  with 
manners,  with  proprieties,  order  and  grace.  They 
are,  in  their  nature,  more  relative ;  the  circum 
stance  must  always  be  fit ;  out  of  place  they  lose 
half  their  weight,  out  of  place  they  are  disfran 
chised.  Position,  Wren  said,  is  essential  to  the 
perfecting  of  beauty  ;  —  a  fine  building  is  lost  in  a 
dark  lane  ;  a  statue  should  stand  in  the  air  ;  much 
more  true  is  it  of  woman. 

We  commonly  say  that  easy  circumstances  seem 
somehow  necessary  to  the  finish  of  the  female  char 
acter  :  but  then  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  they 
create  these  with  all  their  might.  They  are  always 
making  that  civilization  which  they  require  ;  that 
state  of  art,  of  decoration,  that  ornamental  life  in 
which  they  best  appear. 


342  WOMAN. 

The  spiritual  force  of  man  is  as  much  shown  in 
taste,  in  his  fancy  and  imagination  —  attaching 
deep  meanings  to  things  and  to  arbitrary  inven 
tions  of  no  real  value,  —  as  in  his  perception  of 
truth.  He  is  as  much  raised  above  the  beast  by 
this  creative  faculty  as  by  any  other.  The  horse 
and  ox  use  no  delays ;  they  run  to  the  river  when 
thirsty,  to  the  corn  when  hungry,  and  say  no  thanks 
but  fight  down  whatever  opposes  their  appetite. 
But  man  invents  and  adorns  all  he  does  with  de 
lays  and  degrees,  paints  it  all  over  with  forms,  to 
please  himself  better ;  he  invented  majesty  and  the 
etiquette  of  courts  and  drawing-rooms  ;  architec 
ture,  curtains,  dress,  all  luxuries  and  adornments, 
and  the  elegance  of  privacy,  to  increase  the  joys  of 
society.  He  invented  marriage  ;  and  surrounded 
by  religion,  by  comeliness,  by  all  manner  of  digni 
ties  and  renunciations,  the  union  of  the  sexes. 

And  how  should  we  better  measure  the  gulf  be 
tween  the  best  intercourse  of  men  in  old  Athens, 
in  London,  or  in  our  American  capitals, — between 
this  and  the  hedgehog  existence  of  diggers  of 
worms,  and  the  eaters  of  clay  and  offal,  —  than  by 
signalizing  just  this  department  of  taste  or  come 
liness  ?  Herein  woman  is  the  prime  genius  and 
ordainer.  There  is  no  grace  that  is  taught  by  the 
dancing-master,  no  style  adopted  into  the  etiquette 
of  courts,  but  was  first  the  whim  and  mere  action 


WOMAN.  343 

of  some  brilliant  woman,  who  charmed  beholders 
by  this  new  expression,  and  made  it  remembered 
and  copied.  And  I  think  they  should  magnify 
their  ritual  of  manners.  Society,  conversation,  de 
corum,  flowers,  dances,  colors,  forms,  are  their 
homes  and  attendants.  They  should  be  found  in 
fit  surroundings  —  with  fair  approaches,  with  agree 
able  architecture,  and  with  all  advantages  which 
the  means  of  man  collect :  — 

"  The  far-fetched  diamond  finds  its  home 

Flashing  and  smouldering  in  her  hair. 
For  her  the  seas  their  pearls  reveal, 

Art  and  strange  lands  her  pomp  supply 
With  purple,  chrome  and  cochineal, 

Ochre  and  lapis  lazuli. 
The  worm  its  golden  woof  presents. 

Whatever  runs,  flies,  dives  or  delves 
All  doff  for  her  their  ornaments, 

Which  suit  her  better  than  themselves." 

There  is  no  gift  of  nature  without  some  draw 
back.  So,  to  women,  this  exquisite  structure  could 
not  exist  without  its  own  penalty.  More  vulner 
able,  more  infirm,  more  mortal  than  men,  they 
could  not  be  such  excellent  artists  in  this  element 
of  fancy  if  they  did  not  lend  and  give  themselves 
to  it.  They  are  poets  who  believe  their  own  poe 
try.  They  emit  from  their  pores  a  colored  atmos 
phere,  one  would  say,  wave  upon  wave  of  rosy  light, 


344  WOMAN. 

in  which  they  walk  evermore,  and  see  all  objects 
through  this  warm-tinted  mist  that  envelops  them. 

But  the  starry  crown  of  woman  is  in  the  power 
of  her  affection  and  sentiment,  and  the  infinite  en 
largements  to  which  they  lead.  Beautiful  is  the 
passion  of  love,  painter  and  adorner  of  youth  and 
early  life  :  but  who  suspects,  in  its  blushes  and  tre 
mors,  what  tragedies,  heroisms  and  immortalities 
are  beyond  it  ?  The  passion,  with  all  its  grace  and 
poetry,  is  profane  to  that  which  follows  it.  All 
these  affections  are  only  introductory  to  that  which 
is  beyond,  and  to  that  which  is  sublime. 

We  men  have  no  right  to  say  it,  but  the  omnipo 
tence  of  Eve  is  in  humility.  The  instincts  of  man 
kind  have  drawn  the  Virgin  Mother  — 

"  Created  beings  all  in  lowliness 
Surpassing,  as  in  height  above  them  all." 

This  is  the  Divine  Person  whom  Dante  and  Mil 
ton  saw  in  vision.  This  is  the  victory  of  Griselda, 
her  supreme  humility.  And  it  is  when  love  has 
reached  this  height  that  all  our  pretty  rhetoric  be 
gins  to  have  meaning.  When  we  see  that,  it  adds 
to  the  soul  a  new  soul,  it  is  honey  in  the  mouth, 
music  in  the  ear  and  balsam  in  the  heart. 

"  Far  have  I  clambered  in  my  mind, 
But  nought  so  great  as  Love  I  find. 
What  is  thy  tent,  where  dost  thou  dwell  ? 

'  My  mansion  is  humility, 
Heaven's  vastest  capability.' 


WOMAN.  345 

The  further  it  doth  downward  tend, 
The  higher  up  it  doth  ascend." 

The  first  thing  men  think  of,  when  they  love,  is 
to  exhibit  their  usefulness  and  advantages  to  the 
object  of  their  affection.  Women  make  light  of 
these,  asking  only  love.  They  wish  it  to  be  an  ex 
change  of  nobleness. 

There  is  much  in  their  nature,  much  in  their  so 
cial  position  which  gives  them  a  certain  power  of 
divination.  And  women  know,  at  first  sight,  the 
characters  of  those  with  whom  they  converse. 
There  is  much  that  tends  to  give  them  a  religious 
height  which  men  do  not  attain.  Their  sequestra 
tion  from  affairs  and  from  the  injury  to  the  moral 
sense  which  affairs  often  inflict,  aids  this.  And  in 
every  remarkable  religious  development  in  the 
world,  women  have  taken  a  leading  part.  It  is 
very  curious  that  in  the  East,  where  Woman  oc 
cupies,  nationally,  a  lower  sphere,  where  the  laws 
resist  the  education  and  emancipation  of  women,  — 
in  the  Mohammedan  faith,  Woman  yet  occupies  the 
same  leading  position,  as  a  prophetess,  that  she  has 
among  the  ancient  Greeks,  or  among  the  Hebrews, 
or  among  the  Saxons.  This  power,  this  religious 
character,  is  everywhere  to  be  remarked  in  them. 

The  action  of  society  is  progressive.  In  barba 
rous  society  the  position  of  women  is  always  low  — 
in  the  Eastern  nations  lower  than  in  the  West. 


346  WOMAN. 

4  When  a  daughter  is  born,"  says  the  Shiking,  the 
old  Sacred  Book  of  China,  "she  sleeps  on  the 
ground,  she  is  clothed  with  a  wrapper,  she  plays 
with  a  tile;  she  is  incapable  of  evil  or  of  good." 
And  something  like  that  position,  in  all  low  society, 
is  the  position  of  woman ;  because,  as  before  re 
marked,  she  is  herself  its  civilizer.  With  the  ad 
vancements  of  society  the  position  and  influence  of 
woman  bring  her  strength  or  her  faults  into  light. 
In  modern  times,  three  or  four  conspicuous  in 
strumentalities  may  be  marked.  After  the  deifica 
tion  of  Woman  in  the  Catholic  Church,  in  the  six 
teenth  or  seventeenth  century,  —  when  her  religious 
nature  gave  her,  of  course,  new  importance,  —  the 
Quakers  have  the  honor  of  having  first  established, 
in  their  discipline,  the  equality  in  the  sexes.  It  is 
even  more  perfect  in  the  later  sect  of  the  Shakers, 
wherein  no  business  is  broached  or  counselled  with 
out  the  intervention  of  one  elder  and  one  elderess. 

A  second  epoch  for  Woman  was  in  France,  —  en 
tirely  civil ;  the  change  of  sentiment  from  a  rude  to 
a  polite  character,  in  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,  — 
commonly  dated  from  the  building  of  the  Hotel  de 
Rambouillet.  I  think  another  important  step  was 
made  by  the  doctrine  of  Swedenborg,  a  sublime 
genius  who  gave  a  scientific  exposition  of  the  part 
played  severally  by  man  and  woman  in  the  world, 
and  showed  the  difference  of  sex  to  run  through  na- 


WOMAN.  347 

ture  and  through  thought.  Of  all  Christian  sects 
this  is  at  this  moment  the  most  vital  and  aggressive. 

Another  step  was  the  effect  of  the  action  of  the 
age  in  the  antagonism  to  Slavery.  It  was  easy  to 
enlist  Woman  in  this ;  it  was  impossible  not  to  en 
list  her.  But  that  Cause  turned  out  to  be  a  great 
scholar.  He  was  a  terrible  metaphysician.  He 
was  a  jurist,  a  poet/a  divine.  Was  never  a  Uni 
versity  of  Oxford  or  Gottingen  that  made  such  stu 
dents.  It  took  a  man  from  the  plough  and  made 
him  acute,  eloquent,  and  wise,  to  the  silencing  of  the 
doctors.  There  was  nothing  it  did  not  pry  into,  no 
right  it  did  not  explore,  no  wrong  it  did  not  expose. 
And  it  has,  among  its  other  effects,  given  Woman  a 
feeling  of  public  duty  and  an  added  self-respect. 

One  truth  leads  in  another  by  the  hand  ;  one  right 
is  an  accession  of  strength  to  take  more.  And  the 
times  are  marked  by  the  new  attitude  of  Woman ; 
urging,  by  argument  and  by  association,  her  rights 
of  all  kinds,  —  in  short,  to  one-half  of  the  world  ;  — 
as  the  right  to  education,  to  avenues  of  employ 
ment,  to  equal  rights  of  property,  to  equal  rights 
in  marriage,  to  the  exercise  of  the  professions  and 
of  suffrage. 

Of  course,  this  conspicuousness  had  its  inconven 
iences.  But  it  is  cheap  wit  that  has  been  spent  on 
this  subject ;  from  Aristophanes,  in  whose  comedies 
I  confess  my  dulness  to  find  good  joke,  to  Rabelais, 


348  WOMAN. 

in  whom  it  is  monstrous  exaggeration  of  tempera 
ment,  and  not  borne  out  by  anything  in  nature,  — 
down  to  English  Comedy,  and,  in  our  day,  to  Ten 
nyson,  and  the  American  newspapers.  In  all,  the 
body  of  the  joke  is  one,  namely,  to  charge  women 
with  temperament ;  to  describe  them  as  victims  of 
temperament ;  and  is  identical  with  Mahomet's 
opinion  that  women  have  not  a  sufficient  moral  or 
intellectual  force  to  control  the  perturbations  of 
their  physical  structure.  These  were  all  drawings 
of  morbid  anatomy,  and  such  satire  as  might  be 
written  on  the  tenants  of  a  hospital  or  on  an  asylum 
for  idiots.  Of  course  it  woidd  be  easy  for  women 
to  retaliate  in  kind,  by  painting  men  from  the  dogs 
and  gorillas  that  have  worn  our  shape.  That  they 
have  not,  is  an  eulogy  on  their  taste  and  self-respect. 
The  good  easy  world  took  the  joke  which  it  liked. 
There  is  always  the  want  of  thought ;  there  is  al 
ways  credulity.  There  are  plenty  of  people  who  be 
lieve  women  to  be  incapable  of  anything  but  to 
cook,  incapable  of  interest  in  affairs.  There  are 
plenty  of  people  who  believe  that  the  world  is  gov 
erned  by  men  of  dark  complexions,  that  affairs  are 
only  directed  by  such,  and  do  not  see  the  use  of  con 
templative  men,  or  how  ignoble  would  be  the  world 
that  wanted  them.  And  so  without  the  affection 
of  women. 

But  for  the  general  charge  :  no  doubt  it  is  well 


WOMAN.  349 

founded.  They  are  victims  of  the  finer  tempera 
ment.  They  have  tears,  and  gaieties,  and  faintings, 
and  glooms,  and  devotion  to  trifles.  Nature's  end, 
of  maternity  for  twenty  years,  was  of  so  supreme 
importance  that  it  was  to  be  secured  at  all  events, 
even  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  highest  beauty.  They 
are  more  personal.  Men  taunt  them  that,  what 
ever  they  do,  say,  read  or  write,  they  are  thinking  of 
themselves  and  their  set.  Men  are  not  to  the  same 
degree  temperamented,  for  there  are  multitudes  of 
men  who  live  to  objects  quite  out  of  them,  as  to  pol 
itics,  to  trade,  to  letters  or  an  art,  unhindered  by 
any  influence  of  constitution. 

The  answer  that  lies,  silent  or  spoken,  in  the 
minds  of  well-meaning  persons,  to  the  new  claims, 
is  this :  that,  though  their  mathematical  justice  is 
not  to  be  denied,  yet  the  best  women  do  not  wish 
these  things ;  they  are  asked  for  by  people  who 
intellectually  seek  them,  but  who  have  not  the  sup 
port  or  sympathy  of  the  truest  women ;  and  that,  if 
the  laws  and  customs  were  modified  in  the  manner 
proposed,  it  would  embarrass  and  pain  gentle  and 
lovely  persons  with  duties  which  they  would  find 
irksome  and  distasteful.  Very  likely.  Providence 
is  always  surprising  us  with  new  and  unlikely  in 
struments.  But  perhaps  it  is  because  these  people 
have  been  deprived  of  education,  fine  companions, 


350  WOMAN. 

opportunities,  such  as  they  wished,  —  because  they 
feel  the  same  rudeness  and  disadvantage  which  of 
fends  you,  —  that  they  have  been  stung  to  say,  "  It 
is  too  late  for  us  to  be  polished  and  fashioned  into 
beauty,  but,  at  least,  we  will  see  that  the  whole 
race  of  women  shall  not  suffer  as  we  have  suf 
fered." 

They  have  an  unquestionable  right  to  their  own 
property.  And  if  a  woman  demand  votes,  offices 
and  political  equality  with  men,  as  among  the 
Shakers  an  Elder  and  Elderess  are  of  equal  power, 
• —  and  among  the  Quakers,  —  it  must  not  be  re 
fused.  It  is  very  cheap  wit  that  finds  it  so  droll 
that  a  woman  should  vote.  Educate  and  refine  so 
ciety  to  the  highest  point,  —  bring  together  a  culti 
vated  society  of  both  sexes,  in  a  drawing-room,  and 
consult  and  decide  by  voices  on  a  question  of  taste 
or  on  a  question  of  right,  and  is  there  any  absurdity 
or  any  practical  difficulty  in  obtaining  their  authen 
tic  opinions  ?  If  not,  then  there  need  be  none  in  a 
hundred  companies,  if  you  educate  them  and  accus 
tom  them  to  judge.  And,  for  the  effect  of  it,  I  can 
say,  for  one,  that  all  my  points  would  sooner  be 
carried  in  the  state  if  women  voted.  On  the  ques 
tions  that  are  important;  —  whether  the  govern 
ment  shall  be  in  one  person,  or  whether  representa 
tive,  or  whether  democratic  ;  whether  men  shall  be 
holden  in  bondage,  or  shall  be  roasted  alive  and 


WOMAN.  351 

eaten,  as  in  Typee,  or  shall  be  hunted  with  blood 
hounds,  as  in  this  country ;  whether  men  shall  be 
hanged  for  stealing,  or  hanged  at  all ;  whether  the 
unlimited  sale  of  cheap  liquors  shall  be  allowed ;  — 
they  would  give,  I  suppose,  as  intelligent  a  vote  as 
the  voters  of  Boston  or  New  York. 

We  may  ask,  to  be  sure,  —  Why  need  you  vote  ? 
If  new  power  is  here,  of  a  character  which  solves 
old  tough  questions,  which  puts  me  and  all  the  rest 
in  the  wrong,  tries  and  condemns  our  religion,  cus 
toms,  laws,  and  opens  new  careers  to  our  young  re 
ceptive  men  and  women,  you  can  well  leave  voting 
to  the  old  dead  people.  Those  whom  you  teach,  and 
those  whom  you  half  teach,  will  fast  enough  make 
themselves  considered  and  strong  with  their  new 
insight,  and  votes  will  follow  from  all  the  dull. 

The  objection  to  their  voting  is  the  same  as  is 
urged,  in  the  lobbies  of  legislatures,  against  clergy 
men  who  take  an  active  part  in  politics ;  —  that  if 
they  are  good  clergymen  they  are  unacquainted 
with  the  expediencies  of  politics,  and  if  they  be 
come  good  politicians  they  are  worse  clergymen. 
So  of  women,  that  they  cannot  enter  this  arena 
without  being  contaminated  and  unsexed. 

Here  are  two  or  three  objections ;  first,  a  want 
of  practical  wisdom ;  second,  a  too  purely  ideal 
view;  and,  third,  danger  of  contamination.  For 
their  want  of  intimate  knowledge  of  affairs,  I  do 


352  WOMAN. 

not  think  this  ought  to  disqualify  them  from  voting 
at  any  town-meeting  which  I  ever  attended.  I 
could  heartily  wish  the  objection  were  sound.  But 
if  any  man  will  take  the  trouble  to  see  how  our 
people  vote,  —  how  many  gentlemen  are  willing  to 
take  on  themselves  the  trouble  of  thinking  and  de 
termining  for  you,  and,  standing  at  the  door  of  the 
polls,  give  every  innocent  citizen  his  ticket  as  he 
comes  in,  informing  him  that  this  is  the  vote  of  his 
party ;  and  how  the  innocent  citizen,  without  further 
demur,  goes  and  drops  it  in  the  ballot-box,  —  I  can 
not  but  think  he  will  agree  that  most  women  might 
vote  as  wisely. 

For  the  other  point,  of  their  not  knowing  the 
world,  and  aiming  at  abstract  right  without  allow 
ance  for  circumstances,  —  that  is  not  a  disqualifica 
tion,  but  a  qualification.  Human  society  is  made 
up  of  partialities.  Each  citizen  has  an  interest 
and  a  view  of  his  own,  which,  if  followed  out  to  the 
extreme,  would  leave  no  room  for  any  other  citizen. 
One  man  is  timid  and  another  rash ;  one  would 
change  nothing,  and  the  other  is  pleased  with  noth 
ing  ;  one  wishes  schools,  another  armies,  one  gun 
boats,  another  public  gardens.  Bring  all  these 
biases  together  and  something  is  done  in  favor  of 
them  all. 

Every  one  is  a  half  vote,  but  the  next  elector  be 
hind  him  brings  the  other  or  corresponding  half  in 


WOMAN.  353 

liis  hand :  a  reasonable  result  is  had.  Now  there 
is  no  lack,  I  am  sure,  of  the  expediency,  or  of  the 
interests  of  trade  or  of  imperative  class-interests 
being  neglected.  There  is  110  lack  of  votes  repre 
senting  the  physical  wants ;  and  if  in  your  city  the 
uneducated  emigrant  vote  numbers  thousands,  rep 
resenting  a  brutal  ignorance  and  mere  animal 
wants,  it  is  to  be  corrected  by  an  educated  and  re 
ligious  vote,  representing  the  wants  and  desires  of 
honest  and  refined  persons.  If  the  wants,  the  pas 
sions,  the  vices,  are  allowed  a  full  vote  through  the 
hands  of  a  half-brutal  intemperate  population,  I 
think  it  but  fair  that  the  virtues,  the  aspirations 
should  be  allowed  a  full  vote,  as  an  offset,  through 
the  purest  part  of  the  people. 

As  for  the  unsexing  and  contamination,  —  that 
only  accuses  our  existing  politics,  shows  how  barbar 
ous  we  are,  —  that  our  policies  are  so  crooked,  made 
up  of  things  not  to  be  spoken,  to  be  understood  only 
by  wink  and  nudge  ;  this  man  to  be  coaxed,  that 
man  to  be  bought,  and  that  other  to  be  duped.  It 
is  easy  to  see  that  there  is  contamination  enough, 
but  it  rots  the  men  now,  and  fills  the  air  with 
stench.  Come  out  of  that :  it  is  like  a  dance-cellar. 
The  fairest  names  in  this  country  in  literature,  in 
law,  have  gone  into  Congress  and  come  out  dishon 
ored.  And  when  I  read  the  list  of  men  of  intellect, 
of  refined  pursuits,  giants  in  law,  or  eminent  schol- 

VOL.  xi.  23 


354  WOMAN. 

ars,  or  of  social  distinction,  leading  men  of  wealth 
and  enterprise  in  the  commercial  community,  and 
see  what  they  have  voted  for  and  suffered  to  be 
voted  for,  I  think  no  community  was  ever  so  po 
litely  and  elegantly  betrayed. 

I  do  not  think  it  yet  appears  that  women  wish 
this  equal  share  in  public  affairs.  But  it  is  they 
and  not  we  that  are  to  determine  it.  Let  the  laws 
be  purged  of  every  barbarous  remainder,  every 
barbarous  impediment  to  women.  Let  the  public 
donations  for  education  be  equally  shared  by  them, 
let  them  enter  a  school  as  freely  as  a  church,  let 
them  have  and  hold  and  give  their  property  as  men 
do  theirs ;  —  and  in  a  few  years  it  will  easily  ap 
pear  whether  they  wish  a  voice  in  making  the  laws 
that  are  to  govern  them.  If  you  do  refuse  them  a 
vote,  you  will  also  refuse  to  tax  them,  —  according 
to  our  Teutonic  principle,  No  representation,  no 
tax. 

All  events  of  history  are  to  be  regarded  as 
growths  and  offshoots  of  the  expanding  mind  of  the 
race,  and  this  appearance  of  new  opinions,  their 
currency  and  force  in  many  minds,  is  itself  the 
wonderful  fact.  For  whatever  is  popular  is  impor 
tant,  shows  the  spontaneous  sense  of  the  hour.  The 
aspiration  of  this  century  will  be  the  code  of  the 
next.  It  holds  of  high  and  distant  causes,  of  the 


WOMAN.  355 

same  influences  that  make  the  sun  and  moon. 
When  new  opinions  appear,  they  will  be  enter 
tained  and  respected,  by  every  fair  mind,  accord 
ing  to  their  reasonableness,  and  not  according  to 
their  convenience,  or  their  fitness  to  shock  our  cus 
toms.  But  let  us  deal  with  them  greatly ;  let  them 
make  their  way  by  the  upper  road,  and  not  by  the 
way  of  manufacturing  public  opinion,  which  lapses 
continually  into  expediency,  and  makes  charlatans. 
All  that  is  spontaneous  is  irresistible,  and  forever 
it  is  individual  force  that  interests.  I  need  not  re 
peat  to  you,  —  your  own  solitude  will  suggest  it,  — 
that  a  masculine  woman  is  not  strong,  but  a  lady  is. 
The  loneliest  thought,  the  purest  prayer,  is  rushing 
to  be  the  history  of  a  thousand  years. 

Let  us  have  the  true  woman,  the  adorner,  the 
hospitable,  the  religious  heart,  and  no  lawyer  need 
be  called  in  to  write  stipulations,  the  cunning 
clauses  of  provision,  the  strong  investitures ;  —  for 
woman  moulds  the  lawgiver  and  writes  the  law. 
But  I  ought  to  say,  I  think  it  impossible  to  sepa 
rate  the  interests  and  education  of  the  sexes.  Im 
prove  and  refine  the  men,  and  you  do  the  same  by 
the  women,  whether  you  will  or  no.  Every  woman 
being  the  wife  or  the  daughter  of  a  man,  —  wife, 
daughter,  sister,  mother,  of  a  man,  she  can  never 
be  very  far  from  his  ear,  never  not  of  his  counsel, 
if  she  has  really  something  to  urge  that  is  good  in 


356  WOMAN. 

itself  and  agreeable  to  nature.  Slavery  it  is  that 
makes  slavery  ;  freedom,  freedom.  The  slavery  of 
women  happened  when  the  men  were  slaves  of 
kings.  The  melioration  of  manners  brought  their 
melioration  of  course.  It  could  not  be  otherwise, 
and  hence  the  new  desire  of  better  laws.  For  there 
are  always  a  certain  number  of  passionately  loving 
fathers,  brothers,  husbands  and  sons  who  put  their 
might  into  the  endeavor  to  make  a  daughter,  a  wife, 
or  a  mother  happy  in  the  way  that  suits  best. 
Woman  should  find  in  man  her  guardian.  Silently 
she  looks  for  that,  and  when  she  finds  that  he  is 
not,  as  she  instantly  does,  she  betakes  her  to 
her  own  defences,  and  does  the  best  she  can.  But 
when  he  is  her  guardian,  fulfilled  with  all  noble 
ness,  knows  and  accepts  his  duties  as  her  brother, 
all  goes  well  for  both. 

The  new  movement  is  only  a  tide  shared  by  the 
spirits  of  man  and  woman ;  and  you  may  proceed 
in  the  faith  that  whatever  the  woman's  heart  is 
prompted  to  desire,  the  man's  mind  is  simultane 
ously  prompted  to  accomplish. 


ADDRESS  TO  KOSSUTH, 

AT  CONCORD,  MAY  11,  1852. 


ADDEESS  TO  KOSSUTH. 


SIB,  —  The  fatigue  o£  your  many  public  visits,  in 
such  unbroken  succession  as  may  compare  with  the 
toils  of  a  campaign,  forbid  us  to  detain  you  long. 
The  people  of  this  town  share  with  their  country 
men  the  admiration  of  valor  and  perseverance  ;  they, 
like  their  compatriots,  have  been  hungry  to  see  the 
man  whose  extraordinary  eloquence  is  seconded  by 
the  splendor  and  the  solidity  of  his  actions.  But, 
as  it  is  the  privilege  of  the  people  of  this  town  to 
keep  a  hallowed  mound  which  has  a  place  in  the 
story  of  the  country  ;  as  Concord  is  one  of  the  mon 
uments  of  freedom  ;  we  knew  beforehand  that  you 
could  not  go  by  us ;  you  could  not  take  all  your 
steps  in  the  pilgrimage  of  American  liberty,  until 
you  had  seen  with  your  eyes  the  ruins  of  the  bridge 
where  a  handful  of  brave  farmers  opened  our  Rev 
olution.  Therefore,  we  sat  and  waited  for  you. 

Ajid  now,  Sir,  we  are  heartily  glad  to  see  you,  at 
last,  in  these  fields.  We  set  no  more  value  than 
you  do  on  cheers  and  huzzas.  But  we  think  that 


360  ADDRESS  TO  KOSSUTH. 

the  graves  of  our  heroes  around  us  throb  to-day  to 
a  footstep  that  sounded  like  their  own  :  — 

"  The  mighty  tread 
Brings  from  the  dust  the  sound  of  liberty." 

Sir,  we  have  watched  with  attention  your  prog 
ress  through  the  land,  and  the  varying  feeling  with 
which  you  have  been  received,  and  the  unvarying 
tone  and  countenance  which  you  have  maintained. 
We  wish  to  discriminate  in  our  regard.  We  wish 
to  reserve  our  honor  for  actions  of  the  noblest 
strain.  We  please  ourselves  that  in  you  we  meet 
one  whose  temper  was  long  since  tried  in  the  fire, 
and  made  equal  to  all  events ;  a  man  so  truly  in 
love  with  the  greatest  future,  that  he  cannot  be 
diverted  to  any  less. 

It  is  our  republican  doctrine,  too,  that  the  wide 
variety  of  opinions  is  an  advantage.  I  believe  I 
may  say  of  the  people  of  this  country  at  large,  that 
their  sympathy  is  more  worth,  because  it  stands  the 
test  of  party.  It  is  not  a  blind  wave  ;  it  is  a  living 
soul  contending  with  living  souls.  It  is,  in  every 
expression,  antagonized.  No  opinion  will  pass  but 
must  stand  the  tug  of  war.  As  you  see,  the  love 
you  win  is  worth  something ;  for  it  has  been  argued 
through ;  its  foundation  searched  ;  it  has  proved 
sound  and  whole ;  it  may  be  avowed ;  it  will  last, 
and  it  will  draw  all  opinion  to  itself. 

We  have  seen,  with  great  pleasure,  that  there  is 


ADDRESS  TO  KOSSUTH.  361 

nothing  accidental  in  your  attitude.  We  have  seen 
that  you  are  organically  in  that  cause  you  plead. 
The  man  of  freedom,  you  are  also  the  man  of  fate. 
You  do  not  elect,  but  you  are  elected  by  God  and 
your  genius  to  the  task.  We  do  not,  therefore, 
affect  to  thank  you.  We  only  see  in  you  the  angel 
of  freedom,  crossing  sea  and  land ;  crossing  parties, 
nationalities,  private  interests  and  self-esteems;  di 
viding  populations  where  you  go,  and  drawing  to 
your  part  only  the  good.  We  are  afraid  that  you 
are  growing  popular,  Sir  ;  you  may  be  called  to  the 
dangers  of  prosperity.  But,  hitherto,  you  have  had 
in  all  countries  and  in  all  parties  only  the  men  of 
heart.  I  do  not  know  but  you  will  have  the  mil 
lion  yet.  Then,  may  your  strength  be  equal  to  your 
day.  But  remember,  Sir,  that  everything  great  and 
excellent  in  the  world  is  in  minorities. 

Far  be  from  us,  Sir,  any  tone  of  patronage  ;  we 
ought  rather  to  ask  yours.  We  know  the  austere 
condition  of  liberty  —  that  it  must  be  reconquered 
over  and  over  again  ;  yea,  day  by  day ;  that  it  is  a 
state  of  war ;  that  it  is  always  slipping  from  those 
who  boast  it  to  those  who  fight  for  it :  and  you, 
the  foremost  soldier  of  freedom  in  this  age,  —  it  is 
for  us  to  crave  your  judgment ;  who  are  we  that 
we  should  dictate  to  you  ?  You  have  won  your 
own.  We  only  affirm  it.  This  country  of  working- 
men  greets  in  you  a  worker.  This  republic  greets 


362  ADDRESS  TO  KOSSUTH. 

in  you  a  republican.  We  only  say,  '  Well  clone, 
good  and  faithful.'  —  You  have  earned  your  own 
nobility  at  home.  We  admit  you  ad  eundem  (as 
they  say  at  College).  We  admit  you  to  the  same 
degree,  without  new  trial.  We  suspend  all  rules 
before  so  paramount  a  merit.  You  may  well  sit  a 
doctor  in  the  college  of  liberty.  You  have  achieved 
your  right  to  interpret  our  Washington.  And  I 
speak  the  sense  not  only  of  every  generous  Ameri 
can,  but  the  law  of  mind,  when  I  say  that  it  is  not 
those  who  live  idly  in  the  city  called  after  his  name, 
but  those  who,  all  over  the  world,  think  and  act  like 
him,  who  can  claim  to  explain  the  sentiment  of 
Washington. 

Sir,  whatever  obstruction  from  selfishness,  indif 
ference,  or  from  property  (which  always  sympa 
thizes  with  possession)  you  •  may  encounter,  we  con 
gratulate  you  that  you  have  known  how  to  convert 
calamities  into  powers,  exile  into  a  campaign,  pres 
ent  defeat  into  lasting  victory.  For  this  new  cru 
sade  which  you  preach  to  willing  and  to  unwilling 
ears  in  America  is  a  seed  of  armed  men.  You 
have  got  your  story  told  in  every  palace  and  log  hut 
and  prairie  camp,  throughout  this  continent.  And, 
as  the  shores  of  Europe  and  America  approach  ev 
ery  month,  and  their  politics  will  one  day  mingle, 
when  the  crisis  arrives  it  will  find  us  all  instructed 
beforehand  in  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  Hungary, 
and  parties  already  to  her  freedom. 


ROBERT  BURNS. 


SPEECH  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OP   THE    BURNS   CENTENARY, 
BOSTON,  JANUARY  25,  1859. 


EGBERT  BURNS. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

I  do  not  know  by  what  untoward  accident  it  has 
chanced,  and  I  forbear  to  inquire,  that,  in  this  ac 
complished  circle,  it  should  fall  to  me,  the  worst 
Scotsman  of  all,  to  receive  your  commands,  and  at 
the  latest  hour  too,  to  respond  to  the  sentiment 
just  offered,  and  which  indeed  makes  the  occasion. 
But  I  am  told  there  is  no  appeal,  and  I  must  trust 
to  the  inspirations  of  the  theme  to  make  a  fitness 
which  does  not  otherwise  exist.  Yet,  Sir,  I  heart 
ily  feel  the  singular  claims  of  the  occasion.  At 
the  first  announcement,  from  I  know  not  whence, 
that  the  25th  of  January  was  the  hundredth  anni 
versary  of  the  birth  of  Robert  Burns,  a  sudden  con 
sent  warmed  the  great  English  race,  in  all  its  king 
doms,  colonies  and  States,  all  over  the  world,  to 
keep  the  festival.  We  are  here  to  hold  our  parlia 
ment  with  love  and  poesy,  as  men  were  wont  to  do 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  Those  famous  parliaments 
might  or  might  not  have  had  more  stateliness  and 
better  singers  than  we,  —  though  that  is  yet  to  be 


366  ROBERT  BURNS. 

known,  —  but  they  could  not  have  better  reason. 
I  can  only  explain  this  singular  unanimity  in  a  race 
which  rarely  acts  together,  but  rather  after  their 
watchword,  Each  for  himself,  —  by  the  fact  that 
Robert  Burns,  the  poet  of  the  middle  class,  repre 
sents  in  the  mind  of  men  to-day  that  great  uprising 
of  the  middle  class  against  the  armed  and  privileged 
minorities,  that  uprising  which  worked  politically 
in  the  American  and  French  Revolutions,  and 
which,  not  in  governments  so  much  as  in  education 
and  social  order,  has  changed  the  face  of  the 
world. 

In  order  for  this  destiny,  his  birth,  breeding  and 
fortunes  were  low.  His  organic  sentiment  was  ab 
solute  independence,  and  resting  as  it  should  on  a 
life  of  labor.  No  man  existed  who  could  look  down 
on  him.  They  that  looked  into  his  eyes  saw  that 
they  might  look  down  the  sky  as  easily.  His  muse 
and  teaching  was  common-sense,  joyful,  aggressive, 
irresistible.  Not  Latimer,  not  Luther  struck  more 
telling  blows  against  false  theology  than  did  this 
brave  singer.  The  Confession  of  Augsburg,  tho 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  French  Rights  of 
Man,  and  the  Marseillaise,  are  not  more  weighty 
documents  in  the  history  of  freedom  than  the  songs 
of  Burns.  His  satire  has  lost  none  of  its  edge. 
His  musical  arrows  yet  sing  through  the  air.  He 
is  so  substantially  a  reformer  that  I  find  his  grand 


ROBERT  BURNS.  367 

plain  sense  in  close  chain  with  the  greatest  masters, 
—  Rabelais,  Shakspeare  in  comedy,  Cervantes,  But 
ler,  and  Burns.  If  I  should  add  another  name,  I 
find  it  only  in  a  living  countryman  of  Burns. 

He  is  an  exceptional  genius.  The  people  who 
care  nothing  for  literature  and  poetry  care  for 
Burns.  It  was  indifferent  —  they  thought  who 
saw  him  —  whether  he  wrote  verse  or  not :  he 
could  have  done  anything  else  as  well.  Yet  how 
true  a  poet  is  he  !  And  the  poet,  too,  of  poor  men, 
of  gray  hodden  and  the  guernsey  coat  and  the 
blouse.  He  has  given  voice  to  all  the  experiences 
of  common  life  ;  he  has  endeared  the  farm-house 
and  cottage,  patches  and  poverty,  beans  and  barley ; 
ale,  the  poor  man's  wine  ;  hardship  ;  the  fear  of 
debt ;  the  dear  society  of  weans  and  wife,  of  broth 
ers  and  sisters,  proud  of  each  other,  knowing  so  few 
and  finding  amends  for  want  and  obscurity  in 
books  and  thoughts.  What  a  love  of  nature,  and, 
shall  I  say  it?  of  middle-class  nature.  Not  like 
Goethe,  in  the  stars,  or  like  Byron,  in  the  ocean, 
or  Moore,  in  the  luxurious  East,  but  in  the  homely 
landscape  which  the  poor  see  around  them,  —  bleak 
leagues  of  pasture  and  stubble,  ice  and  sleet  and 
rain  and  snow-choked  brooks  ;  birds,  hares,  field- 
mice,  thistles  and  heather,  which  he  daily  knew. 
How  many  "  Bonny  Doons  "  and  "  John  Anderson 
my  jo's  "  and  "  Auld  lang  Synes  "  all  around  the 


368  ROBERT  BURNS. 

earth  have  his  verses  been  applied  to!  And  his 
love-songs  still  woo  and  melt  the  youths  and  maids  ; 
the  farm-work,  the  country  holiday,  the  fishing-cob 
ble,  are  still  his  debtors  to-day. 

And  as  he  was  thus  the  poet  of  the  poor,  anxious, 
cheerful,  working  humanity,  so  had  he  the  language 
of  low  life.  He  grew  up  in  a  rural  district,  speak 
ing  a  patois  unintelligible  to  all  but  natives,  and 
he  has  made  the  Lowland  Scotch  a  Doric  dialect  of 
fame.  It  is  the  only  example  in  history  of  a  lan 
guage  made  classic  by  the  genius  of  a  single  man. 
But  more  than  this.  He  had  that  secret  of  genius 
to  draw  from  the  bottom  of  society  the  strength  of 
its  speech,  and  astonish  the  ears  of  the  polite  with 
these  artless  words,  better  than  art,  and  filtered  of 
all  offence  through  his  beauty.  It  seemed  odious 
to  Luther  that  the  devil  should  have  all  the  best 
tunes  ;  he  would  bring  them  into  the  churches  ;  and 
Burns  knew  how  to  take  from  fairs  and  gypsies, 
blacksmiths  and  drovers,  the  speech  of  the  market 
and  street,  and  clothe  it  with  melody.  But  I  am 
detaining  you  too  long.  The  memory  of  Burns,  — 
I  am  afraid  heaven  and  earth  have  taken  too  good 
care  of  it  to  leave  us  anything  to  say.  The  west 
winds  are  murmuring  it.  Open  the  windows  be 
hind  you,  and  hearken  for  the  incoming  tide,  what 
the  waves  say  of  it.  The  doves  perching  always 
on  the  eaves  of  the  Stone  Chapel  opposite,  may 


ROBERT  BURNS.  369 

know  something  about  it.  Every  name  in  broad 
Scotland  keeps  his  fame  bright.  The  memory  of 
Burns,  —  every  man's,  every  boy's  and  girl's  head 
carries  snatches  of  his  songs,  and  they  say  them  by 
heart,  and,  what  is  strangest  of  all,  never  learned 
them  from  a  book,  but  from  mouth  to  mouth.  The 
wind  whispers  them,  the  birds  whistle  them,  the 
corn,  barley,  and  bulrushes  hoarsely  rustle  them, 
nay,  the  music-boxes  at  Geneva  are  framed  and 
toothed  to  play  them  ;  the  hand-organs  of  the  Sa 
voyards  in  all  cities  repeat  them,  and  the  chimes  of 
bells  ring  them  in  the  spires.  They  are  the  prop 
erty  and  the  solace  of  mankind. 
VOL.  xi.  24 


WALTER   SCOTT. 


REMARKS   AT   THE    CELEBRATION   BY   THE    MASSACHUSETTS   HIS 
TORICAL  SOCIETY  OF  THE  CENTENNIAL  ANNIVERSARY  OF  HIS 
BIRTH.    BOSTON,  AUGUST  15,1871. 


WALTER  SCOTT. 


THE  memory  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  dear  to  this 
Society,  of  which  he  was  for  ten  years  an  Honorary 
Member.  If  only  as  an  eminent  antiquary  who  has 
shed  light  on  the  history  of  Europe  and  of  the  Eng 
lish  race,  he  had  high  claims  to  our  regard.  But 
to  the  rare  tribute  of  a  centennial  anniversary  of 
his  birthday,  which  we  gladly  join  with  Scotland 
and  indeed  with  Europe  to  keep,  he  is  not  less  en 
titled,  —  perhaps  he  alone  among  the  literary  men 
of  this  century  is  entitled,  —  by  the  exceptional 
debt  which  all  English-speaking  men  have  gladly 
owed  to  his  character  and  genius.  I  think  no 
modern  writer  has  inspired  his  readers  with  such 
affection  to  his  own  personality.  I  can  well  remem 
ber  as  far  back  as  when  "  The  Lord  of  the  Isles  " 
was  first  republished  in  Boston,  in  1815,  —  my  own 
and  my  school-fellows'  joy  in  the  book.  "  Marmion" 
and  "  The  Lay  "  had  gone  before,  but  we  were  then 
learning  to  spell.  In  the  face  of  the  later  novels, 
we  still  claim  that  his  poetry  is  the  delight  of  boys. 
But  this  means  that  when  we  re-open  these  old 


374  WALTER  SCOTT. 

books  we  all  consent  to  be  boys  again.  We  tread 
over  our  youthful  grounds  with  joy.  Critics  have 
found  them  to  be  only  rhymed  prose.  But  I  be 
lieve  that  many  of  those  who  read  them  in  youth, 
when,  later,  they  come  to  dismiss  finally  their  school 
days'  library,  will  make  some  fond  exception  for 
Scott  as  for  Byron. 

It  is  easy  to  see  the  origin  of  his  poems.  His 
own  ear  had  been  charmed  by  old  ballads  crooned 
by  Scottish  dames  at  firesides,  and  written  down 
from  their  lips  by  antiquaries  ;  and,  finding  them 
now  outgrown  and  dishonored  by  the  new  culture, 
he  attempted  to  dignify  and  adapt  them  to  the 
times  in  which  he  lived.  Just  so  much  thought,  so 
much  picturesque  detail  in  dialogue  or  description 
as  the  old  ballad  required,  so  much  suppression  of 
details  and  leaping  to  the  event,  he  would  keep  and 
use,  but  without  any  ambition  to  write  a  high  poem 
*  after  a  classic  model.  He  made  no  pretension  to 
the  lofty  style  of  Spenser,  or  Milton,  or  Wordsworth. 
y  \  Compared  with  their  purified  songs,  purified  of  all 
1  ephemeral  color  or  material,  his  were  vers  de  societe. 
33ut  he  had  the  skill  proper  to  vers  de  societe,  — 
skill  to  fit  his  verse  to  his  topic,  and  not  to  write 
solemn  pentameters  alike  on  a  hero  or  a  spaniel. 
His  good  sense  probably  elected  the  ballad  to  make 
his  audience  larger.  He  apprehended  in  advance 
the  immense  enlargement  of  the  reading  public, 


WALTER  SCOTT.  375 

which  almost  dates  from  the  era  of  his  books,  — 
which  his  books  and  Byron's  inaugurated ;  and 
which,  though  until  then  unheard  of,  has  become 
familiar  to  the  present  time. 

If  the  success  of  his  poems,  however  large,  was 
partial,  that  of  his  novels  was  complete.  The  tone 
of  strength  in  "  Waverley  "  at  once  announced  the 
master,  and  was  more  than  justified  by  the  superior 
genius  of  the  following  romances,  up  to  the  "  Bride 
of  Lammermocr,"  which  almost  goes  back  to  JEs- 
chylus  for  a  counterpart,  as  a  painting  of  Fate,  — 
leaving  on  every  reader  the  impression  of  the  high 
est  and  purest  tragedy. 

His  power  on  the  public  mind  rests  on  the  singu 
lar  union  of  two  influences.  By  nature,  by  his 
reading  and  taste  an  aristocrat,  in  a  time  and  coun 
try  which  easily  gave  him  that  bias,  he  had  the  vir 
tues  and  graces  of  that  class,  and  by  his  eminent  hu 
manity  and  his  love  of  labor  escaped  its  harm.  He 
saw  in  the  English  Church  the  symbol  and  seal  of 
all  social  order ;  in  the  historical  aristocracy  the 
benefits  to  the  State  which  Burke  claimed  for  it ; 
and  in  his  own  reading  and  research,  such  store  of 
legend  and  renown  as  won  his  imagination  to  their 
cause.  Not  less  his  eminent  humanity  delighted  in 
the  sense  and  virtue  and  wit  of  the  common  people. 
In  his  own  household  and  neighbors  he  found  char 
acters  and  pets  of  humble  class,  with  whom  he  es- 


376  WALTER  SCOTT. 

tablished  the  best  relation,  —  small  farmers  and 
tradesmen,  shepherds,  fishermen,  gypsies,  peasant- 
girls,  crones,  —  and  came  with  these  into  real  ties 
of  mutual  help  and  good-will.  From  these  origi 
nals  he  drew  so  genially  his  Jeanie  Deans,  his  Din- 
monts  and  Edie  Ochiltrees,  Caleb  Balderstones  and 
Fairservices,  Cuddie  Headriggs,  Dominies,  Meg 
Merrilies  and  Jenny  Rintherouts,  full  of  life  and 
reality ;  making  these,  too,  the  pivots  on  which  the 
plots  of  his  stories  turn  ;  and  meantime  without  one 
word  of  brag  of  this  discernment,  —  nay,  this  ex 
treme  sympathy  reaching  down  to  every  beggar  and 
beggar's  dog,  and  horse  and  cow.  In  the  number 
and  variety  of  his  characters  he  approaches  Shak- 
speare.  Other  painters  in  verse  or  prose  have 
thrown  into  literature  a  few  type-figures  ;  as  Cer 
vantes,  DeFoe,  Richardson,  Goldsmith,  Sterne  and 
Fielding  ;  but  Scott  portrayed  with  equal  strength 
and  success  every  figure  in  his  crowded  company. 
His  strong  good  sense  saved  him  from  the  faults 
and  foibles  incident  to  poets,  —  from  nervous  ego 
tism,  sham  modesty,  or  jealousy.  He  played  ever 
a  manly  part.  With  such  a  fortune  and  such  a 
genius,  we  should  look  to  see  what  heavy  toll  the 
Fates  took  of  him,  as  of  Rousseau  or  Voltaire,  of 
Swift  or  Byron.  But  no :  he  had  no  insanity,  or 
vice,  or  blemish.  He  was  a  thoroughly  upright, 
wise  and  great-hearted  man,  equal  to  whatever  event 


WALTER  SCOTT.  377 

or  fortune  should  try  him.  Disasters  only  drove 
him  to  immense  exertion.  What  an  ornament  and 
safeguard  is  humor !  Far  better  than  wit  for  a 
poet  and  writer.  It  is  a  genius  itself,  and  so  de 
fends  from  the  insanities. 

Under  what  rare  conjunction  of  stars  was  this 
man  born,  that,  wherever  he  lived,  he  found  supe 
rior  men,  passed  all  his  life  in  the  best  company, 
and  still  found  himself  the  best  of  the  best !  He 
was  apprenticed  at  Edinburgh  to  a  Writer  to  the 
Signet,  and  became  a  Writer  to  the  Signet,  and 
found  himself  in  his  youth  and  manhood  and  age 
in  the  society  of  Mackintosh,  Horner,  Jeffrey,  Play- 
fair,  Dugald  Stewart,  Sydney  Smith,  Leslie,  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  Wilson,  Hogg,  De  Quincey,  — 
to  name  only  some  of  his  literary  neighbors,  and,  as 
soon  as  he  died,  all  this  brilliant  circle  was  broken 
up. 


EEMAEKS 


AT  THE  MEETING  FOR  ORGANIZING  THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSO 
CIATION,  BOSTON,  MAY  30,  1867. 


UNIVERSITY; 


re* 


REMARKS  AT  THE  MEETING  FOR  OR 
GANIZING  THE  FREE  RELIG 
IOUS  ASSOCIATION. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN: 

I  hardly  felt,  in  finding  this  house  this  morn 
ing,  that  I  had  come  into  the  right  hall.  I  came, 
as  I  supposed  myself  summoned,  to  a  little  commit 
tee  meeting,  for  some  practical  end,  where  I  should 
happily  and  humbly  learn  my  lesson ;  and  I  sup 
posed  myself  no  longer  subject  to  your  call  when  I 
saw  this  house.  I  have  listened  with  great  pleasure 
to  the  lessons  which  we  have  heard.  To  many,  to 
those  last  spoken,  I  have  found  so  much  in  accord 
with  my  own  thought  that  I  have  little  left  to  say. 
I  think  that  it  does  great  honor  to  the  sensibility 
of  the  committee  that  they  have  felt  the  universal 
demand  in  the  community  for  just  the  movement 
they  have  begun.  I  say  again,  in  the  phrase  used 
by  my  friend,  that  we  began  many  years  ago,  — 
yes,  and  many  ages  before  that.  But  I  think  the 
necessity  very  great,  and  it  has  prompted  an  equal 
magnanimity,  that  thus  invites  all  classes,  all  re- 


382    REMARKS  AT  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF 

ligious  men,  whatever  their  connections,  whatever 
their  specialties,  in  whatever  relation  they  stand  to 
the  Christian  Church,  to  unite  in  a  movement  of 
benefit  to  men,  under  the  sanction  of  religion.  We 
are  all  very  sensible,  —  it  is  forced  on  us  every  day, 
—  of  the  feeling  that  churches  are  outgrown  ;  that 
the  creeds  are  outgrown ;  that  a  technical  theology 
no  longer  suits  us.  It  is  not  the  ill-will  of  people 
— no,  indeed,  but  the  incapacity  for  confining  them 
selves  there.  The  church  is  not  large  enough  for 
the  man ;  it  cannot  inspire  the  enthusiasm  which 
is  the  parent  of  everything  good  in  history,  which 
makes  the  romance  of  history.  For  that  enthusi 
asm  you  must  have  something  greater  than  your 
selves,  and  not  less. 

The  child,  the  young  student,  finds  scope  in  his 
mathematics  and  chemistry  or  natural  history,  be 
cause  he  finds  a  truth  larger  than  he  is  ;  finds  him 
self  continually  instructed.  But,  in  churches,  every 
healthy  and  thoughtful  mind  finds  itself  in  some 
thing  less ;  it  is  checked,  cribbed,  confined.  And 
the  statistics  of  the  American,  the  English  and 
the  German  cities,  showing  that  the  mass  of  the 
population  is  leaving  off  going  to  church,  indicate 
the  necessity,  which  should  have  been  foreseen, 
that  the  Church  should  always  be  new  and  extem 
porized,  because  it  is  eternal  and  springs  from  the 
sentiment  of  men,  or  it  does  not  exist.  One  won- 


THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSOCIATION.    383 

ders  sometimes  that  the  churches  still  retain  so 
many  votaries,  when  he  reads  the  histories  o£  the 
Church.  There  is  an  element  of  childish  infatua 
tion  in  them  which  does  not  exalt  our  respect  for 
man.  Read  in  Michelet,  that  in  Europe,  for  twelve 
or  fourteen  centuries,  God  the  Father  had  no  tem 
ple  and  no  altar.  The  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Son  of 
Mary  were  worshipped,  and,  in  the  thirteenth  cen 
tury,  the  First  Person  began  to  appear  at  the  side 
of  his  Son,  in  pictures  and  in  sculpture,  for  wor 
ship,  but  only  through  favor  of  his  Son.  These 
mortifying  puerilities  abound  in  religious  history. 
But  as  soon  as  every  man  is  apprised  of  the  Divine 
Presence  within  his  own  mind,  —  is  apprised  that 
the  perfect  law  of  duty  corresponds  with  the  laws 
of  chemistry,  of  vegetation,  of  astronomy,  as  face 
to  face  in  a  glass  ;  that  the  basis  of  duty,  the  order 
of  society,  the  power  of  character,  the  wealth  of 
culture,  the  perfection  of  taste,  all  draw  their  es 
sence  from  this  moral  sentiment,  then  we  have  a 
religion  that  exalts,  that  commands  all  the  social 
and  all  the  private  action. 

What  strikes  me  in  the  sudden  movement  which 
brings  together  to-day  so  many  separated  friends, 
—  separated  but  sympathetic,  —  and  what  I  ex 
pected  to  find  here  was,  some  practical  suggestions 
by  which  we  were  to  reanimate  and  reorganize  for 
ourselves  the  true  Church,  the  pure  ^  rorship.  Pure 


384    THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSOCIATION. 

doctrine  always  bears  fruit  in  pure  benefits.  It  is 
only  by  good  works,  it  is  only  on  the  basis  of  ac 
tive  duty,  that  worship  finds  expression.  What  is 
best  in  the  ancient  religions  was  the  sacred  friend 
ships  between  heroes,  the  Sacred  Bands,  and  the  re 
lations  of  the  Pythagorean  disciples.  Our  Masonic 
institutions  probably  grew  from  the  like  origin. 
The  close  association  which  bound  the  first  disci 
ples  of  Jesus  is  another  example  ;  and  it  were  easy 
to  find  more.  The  soul  of  our  late  war,  which  will 
always  be  remembered  as  dignifying  it,  was,  first, 
the  desire  to  abolish  slavery  in  this  country,  and 
secondly,  to  abolish  the  mischief  of  the  war  itself, 
by  healing  and  saving  the  sick  and  wounded  sol 
diers,  —  and  this  by  the  sacred  bands  of  the  Sani 
tary  Commission.  I  wish  that  the  various  benefi 
cent  institutions  which  are  springing  up,  like  joyful 
plants  of  wholesomeness,  all  over  this  country, 
should  all  be  remembered  as  within  the  sphere  of 
this  committee,  —  almost  all  of  them  are  repre 
sented  here,  —  and  that  within  this  little  band  that 
has  gathered  here  to-day,  should  grow  friendship. 
The  interests  that  grow  out  of  a  meeting  like  this, 
should  bind  us  with  new  strength  to  the  old  eter 
nal  duties. 


SPEECH 

AT  THE  SECOND  ANNUAL  MEETING  OP  THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSO 
CIATION,  AT  TREMONT  TEMPLE,  FRIDAY,  MAY  28,  1869. 


SPEECH. 

FRIENDS  : 

I  wish  I  could  deserve  anything  of  the  kind  ex 
pression  of  my  friend,  the  President,  and  the  kind 
good-will  which  the  audience  signifies,  but  it  is  not 
in  my  power  to-day  to  meet  the  natural  demands 
of  the  occasion,  and,  quite  against  my  design  and 
my  will,  I  shall  have  to  request  the  attention  of 
the  audience  to  a  few  written  remarks,  instead  of 
the  more  extensive  statement  which  I  had  hoped  to 
offer  them. 

I  think  we  have  disputed  long  enough.  I  think 
we  might  now  relinquish  our  theological  controver 
sies  to  communities  more  idle  and  ignorant  than 
we.  I  am  glad  that  a  more  realistic  church  is  com 
ing  to  be  the  tendency  of  society,  and  that  we  are 
likely  one  day  to  forget  our  obstinate  polemics  in 
the  ambition  to  excel  each  other  In  good  works.  I 
have  no  wish  to  proselyte  any  reluctant  mind,  nor, 
I  think,  have  I  any  curiosity  or  impulse  to  intrude 
on  those  whose  ways  of  thinking  differ  from  mine. 
But  as  my  friend,  your  presiding  officer,  has  asked 
me  to  take  at  least  some  small  part  in  this  day's 


388    SPEECH  AT  THE  ANNUAL  MEETING  OF 

conversation,  I  am  ready  to  give,  as  often  before, 
the  first  simple  foundation  of  my  belief,  that  the 
Author  of  Nature  has  not  left  himself  without  ar 
witness  in  any  sane  mind :  that  the  moral  senti 
ment  speaks  to  every  man  the  law  after  which  the 
Universe  was  made ;  that  we  find  parity,  identity 
of  design,  through  Nature,  and  benefit  to  be  the 
uniform  aim :  that  there  is  a  force  always  at  work 
to  make  the  best  better  and  the  worst  good.  We 
have  had  not  long  since  presented  us  by  Max  M til 
ler  a  valuable  paragraph  from  St.  Augustine,  not 
at  all  extraordinary  in  itself,  but  only  as  coming 
from  that  eminent  Father  in  the  Church,  and  at 
that  age,  in  which  St.  Augustine  writes:  "That 
which  is  now  called  the  Christian  religion  existed 
among  the  ancients,  and  never  did  not  exist  from 
the  planting  of  the  human  race  until  Christ  came 
in  the  flesh,  at  which  time  the  true  religion  which 
already  existed  began  to  be  called  Christianity."  I 
believe  that  not  only  Christianity  is  as  old  as  the 
Creation,  —  not  only  every  sentiment  and  precept 
of  Christianity  can  be  paralleled  in  other  religious 
writings,  —  but  more,  that  a  man  of  religious  sus 
ceptibility,  and  one  at  the  same  time  conversant 
with  many  men,  —  say  a  much-travelled  man,  — 
can  find  the  same  idea  in  numberless  conversations. 
The  religious  find  religion  wherever  they  associate. 
When  I  find  in  people  narrow  religion,  I  find  also 


THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSOCIATION.      389 

in  them  narrow  reading.  Nothing  really  is  so  self- 
publishing,  so  divulgatory,  as  thought.  It  cannot 
be  confined  or  hid.  It  is  easily  carried ;  it  takes 
no  room ;  the  knowledge  of  Europe  looks  out  into 
Persia  and  India,  and  to  the  very  Kaffirs.  Every 
proverb,  every  fine  text,  every  pregnant  jest,  trav 
els  across  the  line;  and  you  will  find  it  at  Cape 
Town,  or  among  the  Tartars.  We  are  all  believers 
in  natural  religion  ;  we  all  agree  that  the  health 
and  integrity  of  man  is  self-respect,  self-subsist- 
ency,  a  regard  to  natural  conscience.  All  educa 
tion  is  to  accustom  him  to  trust  himself,  discrimi 
nate  between  his  higher  and  lower  thoughts,  exert 
the  timid  faculties  until  they  are  robust,  and  thus 
train  him  to  self-help,  until  he  ceases  to  be  an  un 
derling,  a  tool,  and  becomes  a  benefactor.  I  think 
wise  men  wish  their  religion  to  be  all  of  this  kind, 
teaching  the  agent  to  go  alone,  not  to  hang  on  the 
world  as  a  pensioner,  a  permitted  person,  but  an 
adult,  self-searching  soul,  brave  to  assist  or  resist 
a  world :  only  humble  and  docile  before  the  source 
of  the  wisdom  he  has  discovered  within  him. 

As  it  is,  every  believer  holds  a  different  creed ; 
that  is,  all  the  churches  are  churches  of  one  mem 
ber.  All  our  sects  have  refined  the  point  of  differ 
ence  between  them.  The  point  of  difference  that 
still  remains  between  churches,  or  between  classes, 
is  in  the  addition  to  the  moral  code,  that  is,  to  nat- 


390    SPEECH  AT  THE  ANNUAL  MEETING  OF 

ural  religion,  of  somewhat  positive  and  historical. 
I  think  that  to  be,  as  Mr.  Abbot  has  stated  it  in 
his  form,  the  one  difference  remaining.  I  object, 
of  course,  to  the  claim  of  miraculous  dispensation, 
—  certainly  not  to  the  doctrine  of  Christianity. 
This  claim  impairs,  to  my  mind,  the  soundness  of 
him  who  makes  it,  and  indisposes  us  to  his  com 
munion.  This  comes  the  wrong  way ;  it  comes 
from  without,  not  within.  This  positive,  historical, 
authoritative  scheme  is  not  consistent  with  our  ex 
perience  or  our  expectations.  It  is  something  not 
in  Nature:  it  is  contrary  to  that  law  of  nature 
which  all  wise  men  recognize  ;  namely,  never  to  re 
quire  a  larger  cause  than  is  necessary  to  the  effect. 
George  Fox,  the  Quaker,  said  that,  though  he  read 
of  Christ  and  God,  he  knew  them  only  from  the 
like  spirit  in  his  own  soul.  We  want  all  the  aids 
to  our  moral  training.  We  cannot  spare  the  vision 
nor  the  virtue  of  the  saints  ;  but  let  it  be  by  pure 
sympathy,  not  with  any  personal  or  official  claim. 
If  you  are  childish,  and  exhibit  your  saint  as  a 
worker  of  wonders,  a  thaumaturgist,  I  am  repelled. 
That  claim  takes  his  teachings  out  of  logic  and  out 
of  nature,  and  permits  official  and  arbitrary  senses 
to  be  grafted  on  the  teachings.  It  is  the  praise  of 
our  New  Testament  that  its  teachings  go  to  the 
honor  and  benefit  of  humanity,  —  that  no  better 
lesson  has  been  taught  or  incarnated.  Let  it  stand, 


THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSOCIATION.    391 

beautiful  and  wholesome,  with  whatever  is  most  like 
it  in  the  teaching  and  practice  of  men ;  but  do  not 
attempt  to  elevate  it  out  of  humanity  by  saying, 
"  This  was  not  a  man,"  for  then  you  confound  it 
with  the  fables  of  every  popular  religion,  and  my 
distrust  of  the  story  makes  me  distrust  the  doc 
trine  as  soon  as  it  differs  from  my  own  belief. 

Whoever  thinks  a  story  gains  by  the  prodigious, 
by  adding  something  out  of  nature,  robs  it  more 
than  he  adds.  It  is  no  longer  an  example,  a  model ; 
no  longer  a  heart-stirring  hero,  but  an  exhibition, 
a  wonder,  an  anomaly,  removed  out  of  the  range 
of  influence  with  thoughtful  men.  I  submit  that 
in  sound  frame  of  mind,  we  read  or  remember  the 
religious  sayings  and  oracles  of  other  men,  whether 
Jew  or  Indian,  or  Greek  or  Persian,  only  for 
friendship,  only  for  joy  in  the  social  identity  which 
they  open  to  us,  and  that  these  words  would  have 
no  weight  with  us  if  we  had  not  the  same  conviction 
already.  I  find  something  stingy  in  the  unwilling 
and  disparaging  admission  of  these  foreign  opinions, 
—  opinions  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  —  by  our 
churchmen,  as  if  only  to  enhance  by  their  dimness 
the  superior  light  of  Christianity.  Meantime,  ob 
serve,  you  cannot  bring  me  too  good  a  word,  too 
dazzling  a  hope,  too  penetrating  an  insight  from 
the  Jews.  I  hail  every  one  with  delight,  as  show 
ing  the  riches  of  my  brother,  my  fellow-soul,  who 


392     THE  FREE  RELIGIOUS  ASSOCIATION. 

could  thus  think  and  thus  greatly  feel.  Zealots 
eagerly  fasten  their  eyes  on  the  differences  between 
their  creed  and  yours,  but  the  charm  of  the  study 
is  in  finding  the  agreements,  the  identities,  in  all 
the  religions  of  men. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  each  sect  complain  that  they 
do  not  now  hold  the  opinions  they  are  charged 
with.  The  earth  moves,  and  the  mind  opens.  I 
am  glad  to  believe  society  contains  a  class  of  hum 
ble  souls  who  enjoy  the  luxury  of  a  religion  that 
does  not  degrade  ;  who  think  it  the  highest  wor 
ship  to  expect  of  Heaven  the  most  and  the  best ; 
who  do  not  wonder  that  there  was  a  Christ,  but  that 
there  were  not  a  thousand ;  who  have  conceived  an 
infinite  hope  for  mankind;  who  believe  that  the 
history  of  Jesus  is  the  history  of  every  man,  written 
large. 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

A  LECTURE   DELIVERED   AT  THE  OLD   SOUTH  CHURCH,  BOSTON, 
MARCH  30,  1878. 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 


IT  is  a  rule  that  holds  in  economy  as  well  as  in 
hydraulics,  that  you  must  have  a  source  higher 
than  your  tap.  The  mills,  the  shops,  the  theatre 
and  the  caucus,  the  college  and  the  church,  have  all 
found  out  this  secret.  The  sailors  sail  by  chronom 
eters  that  do  not  lose  two  or  three  seconds  in  a 
year,  ever  since  Newton  explained  to  Parliament 
that  the  way  to  improve  navigation  was  to  get  good 
watches,  and  to  offer  public  premiums  for  a  better 
time-keeper  than  any  then  in  use.  The  manufac 
turers  rely  on  turbines  of  hydraulic  perfection  ;  the 
carpet-mill,  on  mordants  and  dyes  which  exhaust 
the  skill  of  the  chemist;  the  calico  print,  on  de 
signers  of  genius  who  draw  the  wages  of  artists, 
not  of  artisans.  Wedgwood,  the  eminent  potter, 
bravely  took  the  sculptor  Flaxman  to  counsel,  who 
said,  "  Send  to  Italy,  search  the  museums  for  the 
forms  of  old  Etruscan  vases,  urns,  water-pots,  do 
mestic  and  sacrificial  vessels  of  all  kinds."  They 
built  great  works  and  called  their  manufacturing 
village  Etruria.  Flaxman,  with  his  Greek  taste, 


396        THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

selected  and  combined  the  loveliest  forms,  which 
were  executed  in  English  clay ;  sent  boxes  of  these 
as  gifts  to  every  court  of  Europe,  and  formed  the 
taste  of  the  world.  It  was  a  renaissance  of  the 
breakfast  table  and  china-closet.  The  brave  manu 
facturers  made  their  fortune.  The  jewellers  imi 
tated  the  revived  models  in  silver  and  gold. 

The  theatre  avails  itself  of  the  best  talent  of 
poet,  of  painter,  and  of  amateur  of  taste,  to  make 
the  ensemble  of  dramatic  effect.  The  marine  in 
surance  office  has  its  mathematical  counsellor  to 
settle  averages;  the  life-assurance,  its  table  of  an 
nuities.  The  wine  merchant  has  his  analyst  and 
taster,  the  more  exquisite  the  better.  He  has  also, 
I  fear,  his  debts  to  the  chemist  as  well  as  to  the 
vineyard. 

Our  modern  wealth  stands  on  a  few  staples,  and 
the  interest  nations  took  in  our  war  was  exasper 
ated  by  the  importance  of  the  cotton  trade.  And 
what  is  cotton  ?  One  plant  out  of  some  two  hun 
dred  thousand  known  to  the  botanist,  vastly  the 
larger  part  of  which  are  reckoned  weeds.  What  is 
a  weed  ?  A  plant  whose  virtues  have  not  yet  been 
discovered,  —  every  one  of  the  two  hundred  thou 
sand  probably  yet  to  be  of  utility  in  the  arts.  As 
Bacchus  of  the  vine,  Ceres  of  the  wheat,  as  Ark- 
wright  and  Whitney  were  the  demi-gods  of  cotton, 
so  prolific  Time  will  yet  bring  an  inventor  to  every 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       397 

plant.  There  is  not  a  property  in  nature  but  a 
mind  is  born  to  seek  and  find  it.  For  it  is  not  the 
plants  or  the  animals,  innumerable  as  they  are,  nor 
the  whole  magazine  of  material  nature  that  can  give 
the  sum  of  power,  but  the  infinite  applicability  of 
these  things  in  the  hands  of  thinking  man,  every 
new  application  being  equivalent  to  a  new  material. 

Our  sleepy  civilization,  ever  since  Roger  Bacon 
and  Monk  Schwartz  invented  gunpowder,  has  built 
its  whole  art  of  war,  all  fortification  by  land  and 
sea,  all  drill  and  military  education,  on  that  one 
compound,  —  all  is  an  extension  of  a  gun-barrel,  — 
and  is  very  scornful  about  bows  and  arrows,  and 
reckons  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Middle  Ages  lit 
tle  better  than  Indians  and  bow-and-arrow  times. 
As  if  the  earth,  water,  gases,  lightning  and  caloric 
had  not  a  million  energies,  the  discovery  of  any  one 
of  which  could  change  the  art  of  war  again,  and 
put  an  end  to  war  by  the  exterminating  forces  man 
can  apply. 

Now,  if  this  is  true  in  all  the  useful  and  in  the 
fine  arts,  that  the  direction  must  be  drawn  from  a 
superior  source  or  there  will  be  no  good  work,  does 
it  hold  less  in  our  social  and  civil  life  ? 

In  our  popular  politics  you  may  note  that  each 
aspirant  who  rises  above  the  crowd,  however  at 
first  making  his  obedient  apprenticeship  in  party 
tactics,  if  he  have  sagacity,  soon  learns  that  it  is  by 


398       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

no  means  by  obeying  the  vulgar  weathercock  of  his 
party,  the  resentments,  the  fears  and  whims  of  it, 
that  real  power  is  gained,  but  that  he  must  often 
face  and  resist  the  party,  and  abide  by  his  resist 
ance,  and  put  them  in  fear ;  that  the  only  title  to 
their  permanent  respect,  and  to  a  larger  following, 
is  to  see  for  himself  what  is  the  real  public  interest, 
and  to  stand  for  that ;  —  that  is  a  principle,  and 
all  the  cheering  and  hissing  of  the  crowd  must  by- 
and  by  accommodate  itself  to  it.  Our  times  easily 
afford  you  very  good  examples. 

The  law  of  water  and  all  fluids  is  true  of  wit. 
Prince  Metternich  said,  "  Revolutions  begin  in  the 
best  heads  and  run  steadily  down  to  the  populace." 
It  is  a  very  old  observation  ;  not  truer  because 
Metternich  said  it,  and  not  less  true. 

There  have  been  revolutions  which  were  not  in 
the  interest  of  feudalism  and  barbarism,  but  in  that 
of  society.  And  these  are  distinguished  not  by  the 
numbers  of  the  combatants  nor  the  numbers  of  the 
slain,  but  by  the  motive.  No  interest  now  attaches 
to  the  wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  to  the  wars  of 
German,  French  and  Spanish  emperors,  which  were 
only  dynastic  wars,  but  to  those  in  which  a  princi 
ple  was  involved.  These  are  read  with  passionate 
interest  and  never  lose  their  pathos  by  time.  When 
the  cannon  is  aimed  by  ideas,  when  men  with  re 
ligious  convictions  are  behind  it,  when  men  die  for 


THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       399 

what  they  live  for,  and  the  mainspring  that  works 
daily  urges  them  to  hazard  all,  then  the  cannon  ar 
ticulates  its  explosions  with  the  voice  of  a  man,  then 
the  rifle  seconds  the  cannon  and  the  fowling-piece 
the  rifle,  and  the  women  make  the  cartridges,  and 
all  shoot  at  one  mark  ;  then  gods  join  in  the  com 
bat  ;  then  poets  are  born,  and  the  better  code  of 
laws  at  last  records  the  victory. 

Now  the  culmination  of  these  triumphs  of  hu 
manity —  and  which  did  virtually  include  the  ex 
tinction  of  slavery  —  is  the  planting  of  America. 

At  every  moment  some  one  country  more  than 
any  other  represents  the  sentiment  and  the  future 
of  mankind.  None  will  doubt  that  America  occu 
pies  this  place  in  the  opinion  of  nations,  as  is 
proved  by  the  fact  of  the  vast  immigration  into 
this  country  from  all  the  nations  of  Western  and 
Central  Europe.  And  when  the  adventurers  have 
planted  themselves  and  looked  about,  they  send 
back  all  the  money  they  can  spare  to  bring  their 
friends. 

Meantime  they  find  this  country  just  passing 
through  a  great  crisis  in  its  history,  as  necessary 
as  lactation  or  dentition  or  puberty  to  the  human 
individual.  We  are  in  these  days  settling  for  our 
selves  and  our  descendants  questions  which,  as  they 
shall  be  determined  in  one  way  or  the  other,  will 
make  the  peace  and  prosperity  or  the  calamity  of 


400       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  next  ages.  The  questions  of  Education,  of  So 
ciety,  of  Labor,  the  direction  of  talent,  of  charac 
ter,  the  nature  and  habits  of  the  American,  may 
well  occupy  us,  and  more  the  question  of  Religion. 

The  new  conditions  of  mankind  in  America  are 
really  favorable  to  progress,  the  removal  of  absurd 
restrictions  and  antique  inequalities.  The  mind  is 
always  better  the  more  it  is  used,  and  here  it  is 
kept  in  practice.  The  humblest  is  daily  challenged 
to  give  his  opinion  on  practical  questions,  and  while 
civil  and  social  freedom  exists,  nonsense  even  has 
a  favorable  effect.  Cant  is  good  to  provoke  com 
mon  sense.  The  Catholic  Church,  the  trance-me 
diums,  the  rebel  paradoxes,  exasperate  the  common 
sense.  The  wilder  the  paradox,  the  more  sure  is 
Punch  to  put  it  in  the  pillory. 

The  lodging  the  power  in  the  people,  as  in  re 
publican  forms,  has  the  effect  of  holding  things 
closer  to  common  sense ;  for  a  court  or  an  aristoc 
racy,  which  must  always  be  a  small  minority,  can 
more  easily  run  into  follies  than  a  republic,  which 
has  too  many  observers,  —  each  with  a  vote  in  his 
hand,  —  to  allow  its  head  to  be  turned  by  any  kind 
of  nonsense :  since  hunger,  thirst,  cold,  the  cries  of 
children,  and  debt,  are  always  holding  the  masses 
hard  to  the  essential  duties. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  American  people  at 
tempted  to  carry  out  the  bill  of  political  rights  to 


THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       401 

an  almost  ideal  perfection.  They  have  made  great 
strides  in  that  direction  since.  They  are  now  pro 
ceeding,  instructed  by  their  success  and  by  their 
many  failures,  to  carry  out,  not  the  bill  of  rights, 
but  the  bill  of  human  duties. 

And  look  what  revolution  that  attempt  involves. 
Hitherto  government  has  been  that  of  the  single 
person  or  of  the  aristocracy.  In  this  country  the 
attempt  to  resist  these  elements,  it  is  asserted,  must 
throw  us  into  the  government  not  quite  of  mobs, 
but  in  practice  of  an  inferior  class  of  professional 
politicians,  who  by  means  of  newspapers  and  cau 
cuses  really  thrust  their  unworthy  minority  into  the 
place  of  the  old  aristocracy  on  the  one  side,  and  of 
the  good,  industrious,  well-taught  but  unambitious 
population  on  the  other,  win  the  posts  of  power, 
and  give  their  direction  to  affairs.  Hence  liberal 
congresses  and  legislatures  ordain,  to  the  surprise 
of  the  people,  equivocal,  interested  and  vicious 
measures.  The  men  themselves  are  suspected  and 
charged  with  lobbying  and  being  lobbied.  No 
measure  is  attempted  for  itself,  but  the  opinion  of 
the  people  is  courted  in  the  first  place,  and  the 
measures  are  perfunctorily  carried  through  as  sec 
ondary.  We  do  not  choose  our  own  candidate,  no, 
nor  any  other  man's  first  choice,  —  but  only  the 
available  candidate,  whom,  perhaps,  no  man  loves. 
We  do  not  speak  what  we  think,  but  grope  after 

VOL.  xi.  26 


402       THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  practicable  and  available.  Instead  of  charac 
ter,  there  is  a  studious  exclusion  of  character.  The 
people  are  feared  and  nattered.  They  are  not  rep 
rimanded.  The  country  is  governed  in  bar-rooms, 
and  in  the  mind  of  bar-rooms.  The  low  can  best 
win  the  low,  and  each  aspirant  for  power  vies  with 
his  rival  which  can  stoop  lowest,  and  depart  widest 
from  himself. 

The  partisan  on  moral,  even  on  religious  ques 
tions,  will  choose  a  proven  rogue  who  can  answer 
the  tests,  over  an  honest,  affectionate,  noble  gentle 
man  ;  the  partisan  ceasing  to  be  a  man  that  he  may 
be  a  sectarian. 

The  spirit  of  our  political  economy  is  low  and 
degrading.  The  precious  metals  are  not  so  precious 
as  they  are  esteemed.  Man  exists  for  his  own  sake, 
and  not  to  add  a  laborer  to  the  state.  The  spirit 
of  our  political  action,  for  the  most  part,  considers 
nothing  less  than  the  sacredness  of  man.  Party 
sacrifices  man  to  the  measure. 

We  have  seen  the  great  party  of  property  and 
education  in  the  country  drivelling  and  huckstering 
away,  for  views  of  party  fear  or  advantage,  every 
principle  of  humanity  and  the  dearest  hopes  of  man 
kind  ;  the  trustees  of  power  only  energetic  when 
mischief  could  be  done,  imbecile  as  corpses  when 
evil  was  to  be  prevented. 

Our  great  men  succumb  so  far  to  the  forms  of 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       403 

the  day  as  to  peril  their  integrity  for  the  sake  of 
adding  to  the  weight  of  their  personal  character 
the  authority  of  office,  or  making  a  real  govern 
ment  titular.  Our  politics  are  full  of  adventurers, 
who  having  by  education  and  social  innocence  a 
good  repute  in  the  state,  break  away  from  the  law 
of  honesty  and  think  they  can  afford  to  join  the 
devil's  party.  'T  is  odious,  these  offenders  in  high 
life.  You  rally  to  the  support  of  old  charities  and 
the  cause  of  literature,  and  there,  to  be  sure,  are 
these  brazen  faces.  In  this  innocence  you  are  puz 
zled  how  to  meet  them ;  must  shake  hands  with 
them,  under  protest.  We  feel  toward  them  as  the 
minister  about  the  Cape  Cod  farm,  —  in  the  old 
time  when  the  minister  was  still  invited,  in  the 
spring,  to  make  a  prayer  for  the  blessing  of  a  piece 
of  land,  —  the  good  pastor  being  brought  to  the 
spot,  stopped  short :  "  No,  this  land  does  not  want 
a  prayer,  this  land  wants  manure." 

"  T  is  virtue  which  they  want,  and  wanting  it, 
Honor  no  garment  to  their  backs  can  fit." 

Parties  keep  the  old  names,  but  exhibit  a  surpris 
ing  fugacity  in  creeping  out  of  one  snake-skin  into 
another  of  equal  ignominy  and  lubricity,  and  the 
grasshopper  on  the  turret  of  Faneuil  Hall  gives  a 
proper  hint  of  the  men  below. 

Everything  yields.  The  very  glaciers  are  vis 
cous,  or  regelate  into  conformity,  and  the  stiffest 


404       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

patriots  falter  and  compromise  ;  so  that  will  cannot 
be  depended  on  to  save  us. 

How  rare  are  acts  of  will !  We  are  all  living 
according  to  custom  ;  we  do  as  other  people  do,  and 
shrink  from  an  act  of  our  own.  Every  such  act 
makes  a  man  famous,  and  we  can  all  count  the  few 
cases,  —  half  a  dozen  in  our  time,  —  when  a  public 
man  ventured  to  act  as  he  thought,  without  waiting 
for  orders  or  for  public  opinion.  John  Quincy 
Adams  was  a  man  of  an  audacious  independence 
that  always  kept  the  public  curiosity  alive  in  re 
gard  to  what  he  might  do.  None  could  predict  his 
word,  and  a  whole  congress  could  not  gainsay  it 
when  it  was  spoken.  General  Jackson  was  a  man 
of  will,  and  his  phrase  on  one  memorable  occasion, 
"  I  will  take  the  responsibility,"  is  a  proverb  ever 
since. 

The  American  marches  with  a  careless  swagger 
to  the  height  of  power,  very  heedless  of  his  own  lib 
erty  or  of  other  peoples',  in  his  reckless  confidence 
that  he  can  have  all  he  wants,  risking  all  the  prized 
charters  of  the  human  race,  bought  with  battles  and 
revolutions  and  religion,  gambling  them  all  away 
for  a  paltry  selfish  gain. 

He  sits  secure  in  the  possession  of  his  vast  do 
main,  rich  beyond  all  experience  in  resources,  sees 
its  inevitable  force  unlocking  itself  in  elemental  or 
der  day  by  day,  year  by  year ;  looks  from  his  coal- 


THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       405 

fields,  his  wheat-bearing  prairie,  his  gold-mines,  to 
his  two  oceans  on  either  side,  and  feels  the  security 
that  there  can  be  no  famine  in  a  country  reaching 
through  so  many  latitudes,  no  want  that  cannot  be 
supplied,  no  danger  from  any  excess  of  importation 
of  art  or  learning  into  a  country  of  such  native 
strength,  such  immense  digestive  power. 

In  proportion  to  the  personal  ability  of  each  man, 
he  feels  the  invitation  and  career  which  the  country 
opens  to  him.  He  is  easily  fed  with  wheat  and 
game,  with  Ohio  wine,  but  his  brain  is  also  pam 
pered  by  finer  draughts,  by  political  power  and  by 
the  power  in  the  railroad  board,  in  the  mills,  or  the 
banks.  This  elevates  his  spirits,  and  gives,  of 
course,  an  easy  self-reliance  that  makes  him  self- 
willed  and  unscrupulous. 

I  think  this  levity  is  a  reaction  on  the  people  from 
the  extraordinary  advantages  and  invitations  of 
their  condition.  When  we  are  most  disturbed  by 
their  rash  and  immoral  voting,  it  is  not  malignity, 
but  recklessness.  They  are  careless  of  politics,  be 
cause  they  do  not  entertain  the  possibility  of  being 
seriously  caught  in  meshes  of  legislation.  They  feel 
strong  and  irresistible.  They  believe  that  what 
they  have  enacted  they  can  repeal  if  they  do  not 
like  it.  But  one  may  run  a  risk  once  too  often. 
They  stay  away  from  the  polls,  saying  that  one  vote 
can  do  no  good  !  Or  they  take  another  step,  and 


406       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

say  One  vote  can  do  jio  harm  !  and  vote  for  some 
thing  which  they  do  not  approve,  because  their 
party  or  set  votes  for  it.  Of  course  this  puts  them 
in  the  power  of  any  party  having  a  steady  interest 
to  promote  which  does  not  conflict  manifestly  with 
the  pecuniary  interest  of  the  voters.  But  if  they 
should  come  to  be  interested  in  themselves  and  in 
their  career,  they  would  no  more  stay  away  from  the 
election  than  from  their  own  counting-room  or  the 
house  of  their  friend. 

The  people  are  right-minded  enough  on  ethical 
questions,  but  they  must  pay  their  debts,  and  must 
have  the  means  of  living  well,  and  not  pinching. 
So  it  is  useless  to  rely  on  them  to  go  to  a  meeting, 
or  to  give  a  vote,  if  any  check  from  this  must-have- 
the-money  side  arises.  If  a  customer  looks  grave 
at  their  newspaper,  or  damns  their  member  of  Con 
gress,  they  take  another  newspaper,  and  vote  for 
another  man.  They  must  have  money,  for  a  cer 
tain  style  of  living  fast  becomes  necessary;  they 
must  take  wine  at  the  hotel,  first,  for  the  look  of 
it,  and  second,  for  the  purpose  of  sending  the  bottle 
to  two  or  three  gentlemen  at  the  table ;  and  pres 
ently  because  they  have  got  the  taste,  and  do  not 
feel  that  they  have  dined  without  it. 

The  record  of  the  election  now  and  then  alarms 
people  by  the  all  but  unanimous  choice  of  a  rogue 
and  brawler.  But  how  was  it  done  ?  What  law- 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       407 

less  mob  burst  into  the  polls  and  threw  in  these 
hundreds  of  ballots  in  defiance  of  the  magistrates  ? 
This  was  done  by  the  very  men  you  know,  —  the 
mildest,  most  sensible,  best-natured  people.  The 
only  account  of  this  is,  that  they  have  been  scared 
or  warped  into  some  association  in  their  mind  of 
the  candidate  with  the  interest  of  their  trade  or  of 
their  property. 

Whilst  each  cabal  urges  its  candidate,  and  at 
last  brings,  with  cheers  and  street-demonstrations, 
men  whose  names  are  a  knell  to  all  hope  of  prog 
ress,  the  good  and  wise  are  hidden  in  their  active 
retirements,  and  are  quite  out  of  question. 

"  These  we  must  join  to  wake,  for  these  are  of  the  strain 
That  justice  dare  defend,  and  will  the  age  maintain/' 

Yet  we  know,  all  over  this  country,  men  of  in 
tegrity,  capable  of  action  and  of  affairs,  with  the 
deepest  sympathy  in  all  that  concerns  the  public, 
mortified  by  the  national  disgrace,  and  quite  ca 
pable  of  any  sacrifice  except  of  their  honor. 

Faults  in  the  working  appear  in  our  system,  as 
in  all,  but  they  suggest  their  own  remedies.  After 
every  practical  mistake  out  of  which  any  disaster 
grows,  the  people  wake  and  correct  it  with  energy. 
And  any  disturbances  in  politics,  in  civil  or  foreign 
wars,  sober  them,  and  instantly  show  more  virtue 


408       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

and  conviction  in  the  popular  vote.  In  each  new 
threat  of  faction  the  ballot  has  been,  beyond  expec 
tation,  right  and  decisive. 

It  is  ever  an  inspiration,  God  only  knows  whence ; 
a  sudden,  undated  perception  of  eternal  right  com 
ing  into  and  correcting  things  that  were  wrong ;  a 
perception  that  passes  through  thousands  as  readily 
as  through  one. 

The  gracious  lesson  taught  by  science  to  this 
country  is,  that  the  history  of  nature  from  first  to 
last  is  incessant  advance  from  less  to  more,  from 
rude  to  finer  organization,  the  globe  of  matter  thus 
conspiring  with  the  principle  of  undying  hope  in 
man.  Nature  works  in  immense  time,  and  spends 
individuals  and  races  prodigally  to  prepare  new 
individuals  and  races.  The  lower  kinds  are  one  af 
ter  one  extinguished  ;  the  higher  forms  come  in. 
The  history  of  civilization,  or  the  refining  of  cer 
tain  races  to  wonderful  power  of  performance,  is 
analogous  ;  but  the  best  civilization  yet  is  only  valu 
able  as  a  ground  of  hope. 

Ours  is  the  country  of  poor  men.  Here  is  prac 
tical  democracy ;  here  is  the  human  race  poured 
out  over  the  continent  to  do  itself  justice  ;  all  man 
kind  in  its  shirt-sleeves  ;  not  grimacing  like  poor 
rich  men  in  cities,  pretending  to  be  rich,  but  un 
mistakably  taking  off  its  coat  to  hard  work,  when 
labor  is  sure  to  ]3ay.  This  through  all  the  country. 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       409 

For  really,  though  you  see  wealth  in  the  capitals, 
it  is  only  a  sprinkling  of  rich  men  in  the  cities  and 
at  sparse  points  ;  the  bulk  of  the  population  is  poor. 
In  Maine,  nearly  every  man  is  a  lumberer.  In 
Massachusetts,  every  twelfth  man  is  a  shoemaker, 
and  the  rest,  millers,  farmers,  sailors,  fishermen. 

Well,  the  result  is,  instead  of  the  doleful  experi 
ence  of  the  European  economist,  who  tells  us,  "  In 
almost  all  countries  the  condition  of  the  great  body 
of  the  people  is  poor  and  miserable,"  here  that  same 
great  body  has  arrived  at  a  sloven  plenty,  —  ham 
and  corn-cakes,  tight  roof  and  coals  enough  have 
been  attained ;  an  unbuttoned  comfort,  not  clean, 
not  thoughtful,  far  from  polished,  without  dignity 
in  his  repose  ;  the  man  awkward  and  restless  if  he 
have  not  something  to  do,  but  honest  and  kind  for 
the  most  part,  understanding  his  own  rights  and 
stiff  to  maintain  them,  and  disposed  to  give  his 
children  a  better  education  than  he  received. 

The  steady  improvement  of  the  public  schools  in 
the  cities  and  the  country  enables  the  farmer  or  la 
borer  to  secure  a  precious  primary  education.  It  is 
rare  to  find  a  born  American  who  cannot  read  and 
write.  The  facility  with  which  clubs  are  formed 
by  young  men  for  discussion  of  social,  political  and 
intellectual  topics  secures  the  notoriety  of  the  ques 
tions. 

Our  institutions,  of  which  the  town  is  the  unit, 


410       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

are  all  educational,  for  responsibility  educates  fa"st. 
The  town  meeting  is,  after  tjie  high  school,  a  higher 
school.  The  legislature,  to  which  every  good 
farmer  goes  once  on  trial,  is  a  superior  academy. 

The  result  appears  in  the  power  of  invention,  the 
freedom  of  thinking,  in  the  readiness  for  reforms, 
eagerness  for  novelty,  even  for  all  the  follies  of 
false  science  ;  in  the  antipathy  to  secret  societies, 
in  the  predominance  of  the  democratic  party  in 
the  politics  of  the  Union,  and  in  the  voice  of  the 
public  even  when  irregular  and  vicious,  —  the  voice 
of  mobs,  the  voice  of  lynch  law,  —  because  it  is 
thought  to  be,  on  the  whole,  the  verdict,  though 
badly  spoken,  of  the  greatest  number. 

All  this  forwardness  and  self-reliance  cover  self- 
government  ;  proceed  on  the  belief  that  as  the  peo 
ple  have  made  a  government  they  can  make  an 
other  ;  that  Their  union  and  law  are  not  in  their 
memory^  but  in  their  blood^  and  condition.  If  they 
unmake-*1  law  they  can  easily  make  a  new  one./  In 

"™l^^^^<*'        ^^^  ^s^ 

Mr.  Webster's  imagination  tho  American  Tniou 
was  a  huge  Prince  Rupert's  drop,  which  will  snap 
into  atoms  if  so  much  as  the  smallest  end  be  shiv 
ered  off.  Now  the  fact  is  quite  different  from  this. 
The  people  are  loyal,  law-abiding.  They  prefer 
order,  and  have  no  taste  for  misrule  and  uproar. 

America  was  opened  after  the  feudal  mischief 
'was  spent,  and  so  the  people  made  a  good  start. 


THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       411 

We  began  well.  No  inquisition  here,  no  kings,  no 
nobles,  no  dominant  church.  Here  heresy  has  lost 
its  terrors.  We  have  eight  or  ten  religions  in  every 
large  town,  and  the  most  that  comes  of  it  is  a  de 
gree  or  two  on  the  thermometer  of  fashion  ;  a  pew 
in  a  particular  church  gives  an  easier  entrance  to 
the  subscription  ball. 

We  began  with  freedom,  and  are  defended  from 
shocks  now  for  a  century  by  the  facility  with  which 
through  popular  assemblies  every  necessary  meas 
ure  of  reform  can  instantly  be  carried.  A  congress 
is  a  standing  insurrection,  and  escapes  the  violence 
of  accumulated  grievance.  As  the  globe  keeps  its 
identity  by  perpetual  change,  so  our  civil  system,  by 
perpetual  appeal  to  the  people  and  acceptance  of 
its  reforms. 

The  government  is  acquainted  with  the  opinions 
of  all  classes,  knows  the  leading  men  in  the  mid 
dle  class,  knows  the  leaders  of  the  humblest  class. 
The  President  comes  near  enough  to  these ;  if  he 
does  not,  the  caucus  does,  the  primary  ward  and 
town  meeting,  and  what  is  important  does  reach 
him. 

The  men,  the  women,  all  over  this  land  shrill 
their  exclamations  of  impatience  and  indignation 
at  what  is  short-coming  or  is  unbecoming  in  the 
government,  —  at  the  want  of  humanity,  of  moral 
ity, —  ever  on  broad  grounds  of  general  justice,  and 


412       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

not  on  the  class-feeling  which  narrows  the  percep 
tion  of  English,  French,  German  people  at  home. 

In  this  fact,  that  we  are  a  nation  of  individuals, 
that  we  have  a  highly  intellectual  organization,  that 
we  can  see  and  feel  moral  distinctions,  and  that  on 
such  an  organization  sooner  or  later  the  moral  laws 
must  tell,  to  such  ears  must  speak,  —  in  this  is  our 
hope.  For  if  the  prosperity  of  this  country  has 
been  merely  the  obedience  of  man  to  the  guiding 
of  nature,  —  of  great  rivers  and  prairies,  —  yet  is 
there  fate  above  fate,  if  we  choose  to  speak  this 
language ;  or,  if  there  is  fate  in  corn  and  cotton,  so 
is  there  fate  in  thought,  —  this,  namely,  that  the 
largest  thought  and  the  widest  love  are  born  to 
victory,  and  must  prevail. 

The  revolution  is  the  work  of  no  man,  but  the 
eternal  effervescence  of  nature.  It  never  did  not 
work.  And  we  say  that  revolutions  beat  all  the 
insurgents,  be  they  never  so  determined  and  poli 
tic  ;  that  the  great  interests  of  mankind,  being  at 
every  moment  through  ages  in  favor  of  justice  and 
the  largest  liberty,  will  always,  from  time  to  time, 
gain  on  the  adversary  and  at  last  win  the  day. 
Never  country  had  such  a  fortune,  as  men  call  for 
tune,  as  this,  in  its  geography,  its  history,  and  in 
its  majestic  possibilities. 

/We  have  much  to  learn,  much  to  correct,  —  a 
great  deal  of  lying  vanity.     The  spread  eagle  must 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       413 

fold  his  foolish  wings  and  be  less  of  a  peacock ; 
must  keep  his  wings  to  carry  the  thunderbolt  when 
he  is  commanded.  We  must  realize  our  rhetoric 
and  our  rituals.  Our  national  flag  is  not  affecting, 
as  it  should  be,  because  it  does  not  represent  the 
population  of  the  United  States,  but  some  Balti 
more  or  Chicago  or  Cincinnati  or  Philadelphia 
caucus  ;  not  union  or  justice,  but  selfishness  and 
cunning.  If  we  never  put  on  the  liberty-cap  until 
we  were  freemen  by  love  and  self-denial,  the  liberty- 
cap  would  mean  something.  I  wish  to  see  America 
not  like  the  old  powers  of  the  earth,  grasping,  ex 
clusive  and  narrow,  but  a  benefactor  such  as  no 
country  ever  was,  hospitable  to  all  nations,  legislat 
ing  for  all  nationalities.  Nations  were  made  to 
help  each  other  as  much  as  families  were ;  and  all 
advancement  is  by  ideas,  and  not  by  brute  force  or 
mechanic  force. 

In  this  country,  with  our  practical  understand 
ing,  there  is,  at  present,  a  great  sensualism,  a  head 
long  devotion  to  trade  and  to  the  conquest  of  the 
continent,  —  to  each  man  as  large  a  share  of  the 
same  as  he  can  carve  for  himself,  —  an  extravagant 
confidence  in  our  talent  and  activity,  which  be 
comes,  whilst  successful,  a  scornful  materialism,  — 
but  with  the  fault,  of  course,  that  it  has  no  depth, 
no  reserved  force  whereon  to  fall  back  when  a  re 
verse  comes. 


414       THE  FORTUNE  OF  TEE  REPUBLIC. 

That  repose  which  is  the  ornament  and  ripeness 
of  man  is  not  American.  That  repose  which  indi 
cates  a  faith  in  the  laws  of  the  universe,  —  a  faith 
that  they  will  fulfil  themselves,  and  are  not  to  be 
impeded,  transgressed,  or  accelerated.  Our  people 
are  too  slight  and  vain.  They  are  easily  elated  and 
easily  depressed.  See  how  fast  they  extend  the 
fleeting  fabric  of  their  trade,  —  not  at  all  consider 
ing  the  remote  reaction  and  bankruptcy,  but  with 
the  same  abandonment  to  the  moment  and  the  facts 
of  the  hour  as  the  Esquimaux  who  sells  his  bed  in 
the  morning.  Our  people  act  on  the  moment,  and 
from  external  impulse.  They  all  lean  on  some 
other,  and  this  superstitiously,  and  not  from  insight 
of  his  merit.  !  They  follow  a  fact ;  they  follow  suc 
cess,  and  not  skill.  Therefore,  as  soon  as  the  suc 
cess  stops  and  the  admirable  man  blunders,  they 
quit  him ;  already  they  remember  that  they  long 
ago  suspected  his  judgment,  and  they  transfer  the 
repute  of  judgment  to  the  next  prosperous  person 
who  has  not  yet  blundered.  Of  course  this  levity 
makes  them  as  easily  despond.  It  seems  as  if  his 
tory  gave  no  account  of  any  society  in  which  de 
spondency  came  so  readily  to  heart  as  we  see  it  and 
feel  it  in  ours.  Young  men  at  thirty  and  even 
earlier  lose  all  spring  and  vivacity,  and  if  they  fail 
in  their  first  enterprise  throw  up  the  game. 

The  source  of  mischief  is  the  extreme  difficulty 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.      415 

with  which  men  are  roused  from  the  torpor  of  every 
day.  Blessed  is  all  that  agitates  the  mass,  breaks 
up  this  torpor,  and  begins  motion.  Corpora  non 
agunt  nisi  soluta ;  the  chemical  rule  is  true  in 
mind.  Contrast,  change,  interruption,  are  necessary 
to  new  activity  and  new  combinations. 

If  a  temperate  wise  man  should  look  over  our 
American  society,  I  think  the  first  danger  that 
would  excite  his  alarm  would  be  the  European  in 
fluences  on  this  country.  We  buy  much  of  Europe 
that  does  not  make  us  better  men  :  and  mainly  the 
expensiveness  which  is  ruining  that  country.  We 
import  trifles,  dancers,  singers,  laces,  books  of  pat 
terns,  modes,  gloves  and  cologne,  manuals  of  Goth 
ic  architecture,  steam-made  ornaments.  America 
is  provincial.  It  is  an  immense  Halifax.  See  the 
secondariness  and  aping  of  foreign  and  English  life, 
that  runs  through  this  country,  in  building,  in  dress, 
in  eating,  in  books.  Every  village,  every  city  has 
its  architecture,  its  costume,  its  hotel,  its  private 
house,  its  church,  from  England. 

Our  politics  threaten  her.  Her  manners  threaten 
us.  Life  is  grown  and  growing  so  costly  that  it 
threatens  to  kill  us.  A  man  is  coming,  here  as 
there,  to  value  himself  on  what  he  can  buy.  Worst 
of  all,  his  expense  is  not  his  own,  but  a  far-off  copy 
of  Osborne  House  or  the  Elysee.  The  tendency  of 


416       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

this  is  to  make  all  men  alike  ;  to  extinguish  individ 
ualism  and  choke  up  all  the  channels  of  inspiration 
from  God  in  man.     We  lose  our  invention  and  de 
scend  into  imitation.     A  man  no  longer  conducts 
his  own  life.     It  is  manufactured  for  him.     The 
tailor  makes  your  dress  ;  the  baker  your  bread  ;  the 
upholsterer,  from   an  imported  book  of   patterns, 
your  furniture  ;  the  Bishop  of  London  your  faith. 
In  the  planters  of  this  country,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  the   conditions  of  the  country,  combined 
with  the  impatience  of  arbitrary  power  which  they 
brought  from  England,  forced  them  to  a  wonderful 
personal  independence  and  to  a  certain  heroic  plant 
ing  and  trading.     Later  this  strength  appeared  in 
the  solitudes  of  the  West,  where  a  man  is  made  a 
hero  by  the  varied  emergencies  of  his  lonely  farm, 
and  neighborhoods  must  combine   against  the  In 
dians,  or  the  horse-thieves,  or  the  river  rowdies,  by 
organizing  themselves  into  committees  of  vigilance. 
Thus  the  land  and  sea  educate  the  people,  and  bring 
out  presence  of  mind,  self-reliance,  and   hundred- 
handed  activity.     These  are  the  people  for  an  emer 
gency.     They  are  not  to  be  surprised,  and  can  find 
a  way  out  of    any  peril.     This  rough  and  ready 
force  becomes  them,  and  makes   them  fit  citizens 
and  civilizers.     But  if  we  found  them  clinging  to 
English  traditions,  which  are   graceful  enough  at 
home,  as  the  English  Church,  and  entailed  estates, 


THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       417 

and  distrust  of  popular  election,  we  should  feel  this 
reactionary,  and  absurdly  out  of  place. 

Let  the  passion  for  America  cast  out  the  passion 
for  Europe.  Here  let  there  be  what  the  earth 
waits  for,  —  exalted  manhood.  What  this  country 
longs  for  is  personalities,  grand  persons,  to  coun 
teract  its  materialities.  For  it  is  the  rule  of  the 
universe  that  corn  shall  serve  man,  and  not  man 
corn. 

They  who  find  America  insipid,  —  they  for  whom 
London  and  Paris  have  spoiled  their  own  homes, 
can  be  spared  to  return  to  those  cities.  I  not  only 
see  a  career  at  home  for  more  genius  than  we  have, 
but  for  more  than  there  is  in  the  world. 

The  class  of  which  I  speak  make  themselves 
merry  without  duties.  They  sit  in  decorated  club 
houses  in  the  cities,  and  burn  tobacco  and  play 
whist ;  in  the  country  they  sit  idle  in  stores  and 
bar-rooms,  and  burn  tobacco,  and  gossip  and  sleep. 
They  complain  of  the  flatness  of  American  life; 
"  America  has  no  illusions,  no  romance."  They 
have  110  perception  of  its  destiny.  They  are  not 
Americans. 

The  felon  is  the  logical  extreme  of  the  epicure 
and  coxcomb.  Selfish  luxury  is  the  end  of  both, 
though  in  one  it  is  decorated  with  refinements,  and 
in  the  other  brutal.  But  my  point  now  is,  that 
this  spirit  is  not  American. 

VOL.  xi.  27 


418       THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

Our  young  men  lack  idealism.  A  man  for  suc 
cess  must  not  be  pure  idealist,  then  lie  will  practi 
cally  fail ;  but  lie  must  have  ideas,  must  obey  ideas, 
or  he  might  as  well  be  the  horse  he  rides  on.  A 
man  does  not  want  to  be  sun-dazzled,  sun-blind  5 
but  every  man  must  have  glimmer  enough  to  keep 
him  from  knocking  his  head  against  the  walls. 
And  it  is  in  the  interest  of  civilization  and  good 
society  and  friendship,  that  I  dread  to  hear  of  well 
born,  gifted  and  amiable  men,  that  they  have  this 
indifference,  disposing  them  to  this  despair. 

Of  no  use  are  the  men  who  study  to  do  exactly 
as  was  done  before,  who  can  never  understand  that 
to-day  is  a  new  day.  There  never  was  such  a  com 
bination  as  this  of  ours,  and  the  rules  to  meet  it  are 
not  set  down  in  any  history.  We  want  men  of 
original  perception  and  original  action,  who  can 
j  open  their  eyes  wider  than  to  a  nationality,  — 
1  namely,  to  considerations  of  benefit  to  the  human 
race,  —  can  act  in  the  interest  of  civilization ;  men 
of  elastic,  men  of  moral  mind,  who  can  live  in  the 
moment  and  take  a  step  forward.  Columbus  was 
no  backward-creeping  crab,  nor  was  Martin  Luther, 
nor  John  Adams,  nor  Patrick  Henry,  nor  Thomas 
Jefferson ;  and  the  Genius  or  Destiny  of  America 
is  no  log  or  sluggard,  but  a  man  incessantly  ad 
vancing,  as  the  shadow  on  the  dial's  face,  or  the 
heavenly  body  by  whose  light  it  is  marked. 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       419 

The  flowering  of  civilization  is  the  finished  man, 
the  man  of  sense,  of  grace,  of  accomplishment,  of 
social  power,  —  the  gentleman.  What  hinders  that 
he  be  born  here  ?  The  new  times  need  a  new  man, 
the  complemental  man,  whom  plainly  this  country 
must  furnish.  Freer  swing  his  arms  ;  farther 
pierce  his  eyes ;  more  forward  and  forthright  his 
whole  build  and  rig  than  the  Englishman's,  who, 
we  see,  is  much  imprisoned  in  his  backbone. 

'Tis  certain  that  our  civilization  is  yet  incom 
plete,  it  has  not  ended  nor  given  sign  of  ending  in 
a  hero.  'T  is  a  wild  democracy  ;  the  riot  of  medi 
ocrities  and  dishonesties  and  fudges.  Ours  is  the 
age  of  the  omnibus,  of  the  third  person  plural,  of 
Tammany  Hall.  Is  it  that  nature  has  only  so 
much  vital  force,  and  must  dilute  it  if  it  is  to  be 
multiplied  into  millions  ?  The  beautiful  is  never 
plentiful.  Then  Illinois  and  Indiana,  with  their 
spawning  loins,  must  needs  be  ordinary. 

It  is  not  a  question  whether  we  shall  be  a  multi 
tude  of  people.  No,  that  has  been  conspicuously 
decided  already ;  but  whether  we  shall  be  the  new 
nation,  the  guide  and  lawgiver  of  all  nations,  as 
having  clearly  chosen  and  firmly  held  the  simplest 
and  best  rule  of  political  society. 

Now,  if  the  spirit  which  years  ago  armed  this 
country  against  rebellion,  and  put  forth  such  gi- 


420       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

gantic  energy  in  the  charity  of  the  Sanitary  Com 
mission,  could  be  waked  to  the  conserving  and  cre 
ating  duty  of  making  the  laws  just  and  humane,  it 
were  to  enroll  a  great  constituency  of  religious, 
self-respecting,  brave,  tender,  faithful  obeyers  of 
duty,  lovers  of  men,  filled  with  loyalty  to  each  other, 
and  with  the  simple  and  sublime  purpose  of  carry 
ing  out  in  private  and  in  public  action  the  desire 
and  need  of  mankind. 

Here  is  the  post  where  the  patriot  should  plant 
himself ;  here  the  altar  where  virtuous  young  men, 
those  to  whom  friendship  is  the  dearest  covenant, 
should  bind  each  other  to  loyalty;  where  genius 
should  kindle  its  fires  and  bring  forgotten  truth  to 
the  eyes  of  men. 

It  is  not  possible  to  extricate  yourself  from  the 
questions  in  which  your  age  is  involved.  Let  the 
good  citizen  perform  the  duties  put  on  him  here 
and  now.  It  is  not  by  heads  reverted  to  the  dying 
Demosthenes,  or  to  Luther,  or  to  Wallace,  or  to 
George  Fox,  or  to  George  Washington,  that  you 
can  combat  the  dangers  and  dragons  that  beset  the 
United  States  at  this  time.  I  believe  this  cannot 
be  accomplished  by  dunces  or  idlers,  but  requires 
docility,  sympathy,  and  religious  receiving  from 
higher  principles ;  for  liberty,  like  religion,  is  a  short 
and  hasty  fruit,  and  like  all  power  subsists  only  by 
new  rallyings  on  the  source  of  inspiration. 


THE  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       421 

Power  can  be  generous.  The  very  grandeur  of 
the  means  which  offer  themselves  to  us  should  sug 
gest  grandeur  in  the  direction  of  our  expenditure. 
If  our  mechanic  arts  are  unsurpassed  in  usefulness, 
if  we  have  taught  the  river  to  make  shoes  and  nails 
and  carpets,  and  the  bolt  of  heaven  to  write  our 
letters  like  a  Gillott  pen,  let  these  wonders  work 
for  honest  humanity,  for  the  poor,  for  justice,  gen 
ius  and  the  public  good.  Let  us  realize  that  this 
country,  the  last  found,  is  the  great  charity  of  God 
to  the  human  race. 

America  should  affirm  and  establish  that  in  no 
instance  shall  the  guns  go  in  advance  of  the  present 
right.  We  shall  not  make  coups  d'etat  and  after 
wards  explain  and  pay,  but  shall  proceed  like  Wil 
liam  Penn,  or  whatever  other  Christian  or  humane 
person  who  treats  with  the  Indian  or  the  foreigner, 
on  principles  of  honest  trade  and  mutual  advantage. 
We  can  see  that  the  Constitution  and  the  law  in 
America  must  be  written  on  ethical  principles,  so 
that  the  entire  power  of  the  spiritual  world  shall 
hold  the  citizen  loyal,  and  repel  the  enemy  as  by 
force  of  nature.  It  should  be  mankind's  bill  of 
rights,  or  Royal  Proclamation  of  the  Intellect  as 
cending  the  throne,  announcing  its  good  pleasure 
that  now,  once  for  all,  the  world  shall  be  governed 
by  common  sense  and  law  of  morals. 

The  end  of  all  political  struggle  is  to  establish 


422       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

morality  as  the  basis  of  all  legislation.  'T  is  not 
free  institutions,  'tis  not  a  democracy  that  is  the 
end,  —  no,  but  only  the  means.  Morality  is  the 
object  of  government.  We  want  a  state  of  things 
in  which  crime  will  not  pay ;  a  state  of  things  which 
allows  every  man  the  largest  liberty  compatible 
with  the  liberty  of  every  other  man. 

Humanity  asks  that  government  shall  not  be 
ashamed  to  be  tender  and  paternal,  but  that  dem 
ocratic  institutions  shall  be  more  thoughtful  for  the 
interests  of  women,  for  the  training  of  children, 
and  for  the  welfare  of  sick  and  unable  persons,  and 
serious  care  of  criminals,  than  was  ever  any  the 
best  government  of  the  Old  World. 

The  genius  of  the  country  has  marked  out  our 
true  policy,  —  opportunity.  Opportunity  of  civil 
rights,  of  education,  of  personal  power,  and  not  less 
of  wealth  ;  doors  wide  open.  If  I  could  have  it,  — 
free  trade  with  all  the  world  without  toll  or  custom 
houses,  invitation  as  we  now  make  to  every  nation, 
to  every  race  and"  skin,  white  men,  red  men,  yellow 
men,  black  men  ;  hospitality  of  fair  field  and  equal 
laws  to  all.  Let  them  compete,  and  success  to  the 
strongest,  the  wisest  and  the  best.  The  land  is 
wide  enough,  the  soil  has  bread  for  all. 

I  hope  America  will  come  to  have  its  pride  in 
being  a  nation  of  servants,  and  not  of  the  served. 
How  can  men  have  any  other  ambition  where 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       423 

the  reason  has  not  suffered  a  disastrous  eclipse  ? 
Whilst  every  man  can  say  I  serve,  —  to  the  whole 
extent  of  my  being  I  apply  my  faculty  to  the  service 
of  mankind  in  my  especial  place,  —  he  therein  sees 
and  shows  a  reason  for  his  being  in  the  world,  and  / 
is  not  a  moth  or  incumbrance  in  it. 

The  distinction  and  end  of  a  soundly  constituted 
man  is  his  labor.  Use  is  inscribed  on  all  his  facul 
ties.  Use  is  the  end  to  which  he  exists.  As  the 
tree  exists  for  its  fruit,  so  a  man  for  his  work.  A 
fruitless  plant,  an  idle  animal,  does  not  stand  in 
the  universe.  They  are  all  toiling,  however  secretly 
or  slowly,  in  the  province  assigned  them,  and  to  a 
use  in  the  economy  of  the  world ;  the  higher  and 
more  complex  organizations  to  higher  and  more 
catholic  service.  And  man  seems  to  play,  by  his 
instincts  and  activity,  a  certain  part  that  even  tells 
on  the  general  face  of  the  planet,  drains  swamps, 
leads  rivers  into  dry  countries  for  their  irrigation, 
perforates  forests  and  stony  mountain-chains  with 
roads,  hinders  the  inroads  of  the  sea  on  the  conti 
nent,  as  if  dressing  the  globe  for  happier  races. 

On  the  whole,  I  know  that  the  cosmic  results  will 
be  the  same,  whatever  the  daily  events  may  be. 
Happily  we  are  under  better  guidance  than  of 
statesmen.  Pennsylvania  coal  mines,  and  New  York 
shipping,  and  free  labor,  though  not  idealists,  grav 
itate  in  the  ideal  direction.  Nothing  less  large  than 


424       THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

justice  can  keep  them  in  good  temper.  Justice  sat 
isfies  everybody,  and  justice  alone.  No  monopoly 
must  be  foisted  in,  no  weak  party  or  nationality 
sacrificed,  no  coward  compromise  conceded  to  a 
strong  partner.  Every  one  of  these  is  the  seed  of 
vice,  war  and  national  disorganization.  It  is  our 
part  to  carry  out  to  the  last  the  ends  of  liberty  and 
justice.  We  shall  stand,  then,  for  vast  interests ; 
north  and  south,  east  and  west  will  be  present  to 
our  minds,  and  our  vote  will  be  as  if  they  voted, 
and  we  shall  know  that  our  vote  secures  the  foun 
dations  of  the  state,  good-will,  liberty  and  security 
of  traffic  and  of  production,  and  mutual  increase  of 
good-will  in  the  great  interests. 

Our  helm  is  given  up  to  a  better  guidance  than 
our  own ;  the  course  of  events  is  quite  too  strong 
for  any  helmsman,  and  our  little  wherry  is  taken  in 
tow  by  the  ship  of  the  great  Admiral  which  knows 
the  way,  and  has  the  force  to  draw  men  and  states 
and  planets  to  their  good. 

Such  and  so  potent  is  this  high  method  by  which 
the  Divine  Providence  sends  the  chiefest  benefits 
under  the  mask  of  calamities,  that  I  do  not  think 
we  shall  by  any  perverse  ingenuity  prevent  the 
blessing. 

In  seeing  this  guidance  of  events,  in  seeing  this 
felicity  without  example  that  •  no's  rested %  on  the 
Union  thus  far,  I  find  new  confidence  for  the  future. 


THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       425 

I  could  heartily  wish  that  our  will  and  endeavor 
were  more  active  parties  to  the  work.  But  I  see 
in  all  directions  the  light  breaking.  Trade  and 
government  will  not  alone  be  the  favored  aims  of 
mankind,  but  every  useful,  every  elegant  art,  every 
exercise  of  imagination,  the  height  of  reason,  the 
noblest  affection,  the  purest  religion  will  find  their 
home  in  our  institutions,  and  write  our  laws  for  the 
benefit  of  men. 


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